3. From rotaxanes to nodes: elements of molecular topology
The spectacular progress made in supramolecular chemistry over the last fifty years has enabled us to develop remarkably efficient strategies for the synthesis of complex molecular objects belonging to the rotaxane, catenane and knot families. Initially regarded as genuine synthetic "curiosities", these molecules have, since the beginning of the twentieth century, raised numerous problems in terms of both their synthesis and their graphical representation in the plane. Catenanes and nodes are all characterized by a so-called "non-trivial" topology. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in the field of molecular machines, defines chemical topology as "the science of compounds that cannot be represented in a plane without crossing, whatever the deformations to which the molecule is subjected".
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From rotaxanes to nodes: elements of molecular topology
Conclusion
Bibliography
Software tools
Visualization of complex molecular structures (proteins, polynucleotides): the NGL Viewer :
AS Rose, AR Bradley, Y Valasatava, JM Duarte, A Prlić and PW Rose. Web-based molecular graphics for large complexes. Bioinformatics: bty 419, 2018.doi :10.1093bioinformatics/bty 419
AS Rose and PW Hildebrand. NGL Viewer: a web application for molecular visualization. Nucl Acids Res...
Websites
Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA):
How enzymes work:
https://pdb101.rcsb.org/learn/videos/how-enzymes-work
...
Events
Symposium: International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC), held annually.
International Conference on Calixarenes, is held every two years.
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