Amidourea-Based Hydrogen-Bonded Heteroduplexes: Structure and Assembling Selectivity

A new class of multiply hydrogen-bonded heteroduplexes
from readily available amidourea derivatives was designed, and their
structures and selective assembling behaviors were investigated. Amidourea
derivative 3 could selectively assemble with 1 to form a stable heteroduplex via eight intermolecular bifurcated
hydrogen bonds, but could not assemble with 2 at all,
because of their unique structures and the spacing effect, although 1 and 2 possessed the same hydrogen-bonding sequence.
The high stability and selectivity will make the amidourea-based hydrogen-bonded
heteroduplexes be potentially applicable in the design of well-defined
supramolecular architectures and novel functional materials.