Abstract
Controlled chemical reactions in the condensed state are key steps in designing smart materials. Due to the absence of diffusion and sufficient molecular collision, the reaction efficiency in the solid or aggregated state is expectedly much lower than the solution phase. Herein we report the templating effects in self-assemblies undergoing multiple reactions using an aromatic cystine derivative. Disulfide bond cleavage into cysteine triggered by a reductant is quantitative in aggregates, leading to the molecular rearrangement. Coassembled with a guest pentafluoropyridine through π-hole/π interaction allows for a cascade two-step reaction including reduction and aromatic nucleophilic substitution. These reactions in the condensed, self-assembled state are efficient with significant impacts on the structures of nanoarchitectures. Interestingly, the chiral expression at macroscopic scale and corresponding chiroptical activities exhibit templating and inheritance effect thanks to the sacrificial templating role of pristine aggregates. We introduce new type efficient reactions in the self-assembled states, realizing flexible control by introducing guest, and unveil the chiral inheritance effect in topochemical evolutions.
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Acknowledgements
This works is also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.22171165, 22371170, 22571184) and National Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2025QA15).
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Z.W. and C.C. contributed equally to this work. Z.W. and P.X. proposed the project. Z.W. performed morphology characterization and DFT simulations; C.C. carried out compound synthesis, spectroscopic measurements and related experiments. A.H. and P.X. supervised the research. P.X. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and reviewed the manuscript.
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Wang, Z., Chu, C., Hao, A. et al. Chiral inheritance effect in the reactive cystine-based coassembly system. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69945-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69945-5
