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Electron Cryo‐Microscopy of TPPS 4 ⋅2HCl Tubes Reveals a Helical Organisation Explaining the Origin of their Chirality
Author(s) -
Short Judith M.,
Berriman John A.,
Kübel Christian,
ElHachemi Zoubir,
Naubron JeanValère,
Balaban Teodor Silviu
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
chemphyschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.016
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1439-7641
pISSN - 1439-4235
DOI - 10.1002/cphc.201300606
Subject(s) - chirality (physics) , electron microscope , cryo electron microscopy , materials science , condensed matter physics , crystallography , chemistry , physics , nuclear magnetic resonance , optics , nuclear physics , chiral symmetry breaking , nambu–jona lasinio model , quark
A widely studied achiral porphyrin, which is highly soluble in aqueous solutions (TPPS 4 ), is shown to self‐assemble into helical nanotubes. These were imaged by electron cryo‐microscopy and a state‐of‐the‐art image analysis allows building a map at ∼5 Å resolution, one of the highest obtained so far for molecular materials. The authors were able to trace the apparent symmetry breaking to existing nuclei in the “as received samples”, while carefully purified samples show that both handnesses occur in equal amounts.