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Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation
Various soluble hydrophilic macroions can self-assemble into hollow, spherical, monolayered supramolecular “blackberry”-type structures, despite their like-charged nature. However, how the 3-D symmetrical macroions prefer to form 2-D monolayers in bulk solution, especially for the highly symmetrical...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6117333/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30166571 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31533-z |
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author | Liu, Zhuonan Liu, Tianbo Tsige, Mesfin |
author_facet | Liu, Zhuonan Liu, Tianbo Tsige, Mesfin |
author_sort | Liu, Zhuonan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Various soluble hydrophilic macroions can self-assemble into hollow, spherical, monolayered supramolecular “blackberry”-type structures, despite their like-charged nature. However, how the 3-D symmetrical macroions prefer to form 2-D monolayers in bulk solution, especially for the highly symmetrical “Keplerate” polyoxometalates and functionalized C(60) macroions has been a mystery. Through molecular dynamics simulations, using a model specifically designed for macroions in solution, the mechanism of this intriguing symmetry-breaking process is found to be related to the apparently asymmetric charge distribution on the surface of macroions in the equatorial belt area (the area which can be effectively involved in the counterion-mediated attraction). As a result, the electric field lines around macroions during the self-assembly process clearly show that the symmetry-breaking happens at the dimer level effectively defining the plane of the self-assembly. These findings are expected to contribute to our fundamental knowledge of complex solution systems that are found in many fields from materials science to biological phenomena. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6117333 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61173332018-09-05 Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation Liu, Zhuonan Liu, Tianbo Tsige, Mesfin Sci Rep Article Various soluble hydrophilic macroions can self-assemble into hollow, spherical, monolayered supramolecular “blackberry”-type structures, despite their like-charged nature. However, how the 3-D symmetrical macroions prefer to form 2-D monolayers in bulk solution, especially for the highly symmetrical “Keplerate” polyoxometalates and functionalized C(60) macroions has been a mystery. Through molecular dynamics simulations, using a model specifically designed for macroions in solution, the mechanism of this intriguing symmetry-breaking process is found to be related to the apparently asymmetric charge distribution on the surface of macroions in the equatorial belt area (the area which can be effectively involved in the counterion-mediated attraction). As a result, the electric field lines around macroions during the self-assembly process clearly show that the symmetry-breaking happens at the dimer level effectively defining the plane of the self-assembly. These findings are expected to contribute to our fundamental knowledge of complex solution systems that are found in many fields from materials science to biological phenomena. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6117333/ /pubmed/30166571 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31533-z Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Liu, Zhuonan Liu, Tianbo Tsige, Mesfin Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title | Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title_full | Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title_fullStr | Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title_full_unstemmed | Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title_short | Unique Symmetry-Breaking Phenomenon during the Self-assembly of Macroions Elucidated by Simulation |
title_sort | unique symmetry-breaking phenomenon during the self-assembly of macroions elucidated by simulation |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6117333/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30166571 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31533-z |
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