Interparticle Chiral Recognition of Enantiomers: A Nanoparticle-Based Regulation Strategy.

The ability to regulate how molecular chirality of enantiomeric amino acids operates in biological systems constitutes the basis of drug design for specific targeting of diseases. We report herein nanoparticle-administered chiral recognition of enantiomeric cysteines as a general molecular tuning strategy to regulate the interactions of chiral amino acids. This strategy exploits the pairwise zwitterion interaction of enantiomeric cysteines adsorbed on gold nanoparticles to create a chiral footprint for interparticle enantiomeric recognition. The chiral recognition is evidenced by the sharp kinetic contrast between interparticle homochiral and heterochiral reactivities. The experimental-theoretical correlation of the interparticle reactivity with the enantiomeric ratio reveals that the chiral recognition is tunable both molecularly and by nanoparticles, which has potential applications in drug design for targeting or delivery.