Cyclodextrins AS Dominant Chiral Selective Agents in the Capillary Separation Techniques

This review paper shows the dominant role of the cyclodextrins in the chiral separations using capillary columns (GC, SFC, CE). The cyclodextrins (CDs) have extremely broad chiral selectivity spectra because they have several different chiral recognition sites in various arrangements and various interaction modes. Their chiral selectivity features can further improve with their various substitutions. Their selectivities are moderate therefore they need high efficiency separations (capillary columns) for good chiral resolutions. The shape selectivity of cyclodextrins is also shown with non-chiral isomers too. The utility of the cyclodextrins is demonstrated with several examples based on the personal observations of authors and critical review of literature. The theoretical backgrounds of their chiral recognitions (e.g. H-bond interaction, inclusion, induced fit) are discussed in depth. This paper is not application oriented but is dealing with mostly on the physical and chemical background of separations using CDs.

Examination of abiotic cofactor assembly in photosynthetic biomimetics: site-specific stereoselectivity in the conjugation of a ruthenium(II) tris(bipyridine) photosensitizer to a multi-heme protein

To understand design principles for assembling photosynthetic biohybrids that incorporate precisely-controlled sites for electron injection into redox enzyme cofactor arrays, we investigated the influence of chirality in assembly of the photosensitizer ruthenium(II)bis(2,2′-bipyridine)(4-bromomethyl-4′-methyl-2,2′-bipyridine), Ru(bpy)2(Br-bpy), when covalently conjugated to cysteine residues introduced by site-directed mutagenesis in the triheme periplasmic cytochrome A (PpcA) as a model biohybrid system. For two investigated conjugates that show ultrafast electron transfer, A23C-Ru and K29C-Ru, analysis by circular dichroism spectroscopy, CD, demonstrated site-specific chiral discrimination as a factor emerging from the close association between [Ru(bpy)3]2+ and heme cofactors. CD analysis showed the A23C-Ru and K29C-Ru conjugates to have distinct, but opposite, stereoselectivity for the Λ and Δ-Ru(bpy)2(Br-bpy) enantiomers, with enantiomeric excesses of 33.1% and 65.6%, respectively. In contrast, Ru(bpy)2(Br-bpy) conjugation to a protein site with high flexibility, represented by the E39C-Ru construct, exhibited a nearly negligible chiral selectivity, measured by an enantiomeric excess of 4.2% for the Λ enantiomer. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that site-specific stereoselectivity reflects steric constraints at the conjugating sites and that a high degree of chiral selectivity correlates to reduced structural disorder for [Ru(bpy)3]2+ in the linked assembly. This work identifies chiral discrimination as means to achieve site-specific, precise geometric positioning of introduced photosensitizers relative to the heme cofactors in manner that mimics the tuning of cofactors in photosynthesis.