Ubiquitous Assembly of Amphiphilic Baskets into Unilamellar Vesicles and Their Recognition Characteristics

Abstract

An amphiphilic basket of type <b>1</b> (339 ų) has been found to assemble into unilamellar vesicles in water. The assembled host encapsulates organophosphonates (OPs) (119–185 A³) with a particularly high affinity (<i>K</i>_a ∼ 10⁵ M^–1) toward dimethyl phenylphosphonate (185 ų) whose size and shape resemble that of soman (186 ų). Importantly, the entrapment of OPs prompts a phase transformation of vesicular <b>1</b> into nanoparticles or larger vesicles as a function of the shape of the host–guest complex