Graeme M. Day

Apr 25, 2024 | nature.com | Qiang Zhu |Hang Qu |Graeme M. Day |Kim E. Jelfs |Marc A. Little

AbstractHere we report a two-step, hierarchical synthesis that assembles a trigonal prismatic organic cage into a more symmetric, higher-order tetrahedral cage, or ‘cage of cages’. Both the preformed [2+3] trigonal prismatic cage building blocks and the resultant tetrahedral [4[2+3]+6]cage molecule are constructed using ether bridges. This strategy affords the [4[2+3]+6]cage molecule excellent hydrolytic stability that is not a feature of more common dynamic cage linkers, such as imines.