Unidirectional rotary motion in a molecular system

T. Ross Kelly (), Harshani De Silva and Richard A. Silva
Additional contact information
T. Ross Kelly: E. F. Merkert Chemistry Center, Boston College
Harshani De Silva: E. F. Merkert Chemistry Center, Boston College
Richard A. Silva: E. F. Merkert Chemistry Center, Boston College

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6749, 150-152

Abstract: Abstract The conversion of energy into controlled motion plays an important role in both man-made devices and biological systems. The principles of operation of conventional motors are well established, but the molecular processes used by ‘biological motors’ such as muscle fibres, flagella and cilia1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to convert chemical energy into co-ordinated movement remain poorly understood10,11,12. Although ‘brownian ratchets’13,14,15,16 are known to permit thermally activated motion in one direction only, the concept of channelling random thermal energy into controlled motion has not yet been extended to the molecular level. Here we describe a molecule that uses chemical energy to activate and bias a thermally induced isomerization reaction, and thereby achieve unidirectional intramolecular rotary motion. The motion consists of a 120° rotation around a single bond connecting a three-bladed subunit to the bulky remainder of the molecule, and unidirectional motion is achieved by reversibly introducing a tether between the two units to energetically favour one of the two possible rotation directions. Although our system does not achieve continuous and fast rotation, the design principles that we have used may prove relevant for a better understanding of biological and synthetic molecular motors producing unidirectional rotary motion.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/43639 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6749:d:10.1038_43639

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/43639

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().