posted on 2021-12-28, 06:14authored byBo Song, Dan Lu, Anjun Qin, Ben Zhong Tang
Through mimicking the synthesis of
hereditary-information-containing
nucleic acids, scientists are committed to synthesizing sequence-defined
macromolecules. Herein, a protecting-group-free, metal-free, and atom-economical
chemistry combining hydroxyl-yne and thiol-ene click reactions was
developed to efficiently synthesize sequence-defined oligo(monothioacetals)
(overall yield of 54% for an 11-step synthesis) from readily available
starting compounds and monomers under ambient conditions. The sequences
of linear oligo(monothioacetals) could be easily decoded via a tandem
ESI-MS/MS technique, making them new kinds of digital macromolecules
with a high data storage density (0.013 bit/Da). Moreover, star oligo(monothioacetals)
could also be facilely generated through divergent and convergent
strategies and their combination. An unprecedented sequence-defined
miktoarm star oligo(monothioacetal) was obtained, which could serve
as a new nonlinear digital macromolecule to achieve 2D information
matrix encoding and hold great potential to be applied for information
encryption, anticouterfeiting, secret communication, etc. Thus, this
work provides a powerful stepwise iterative approach to facilely access
sequence-defined linear and topological oligo(monothioacetals) for
high-density data storage.