Fabrication of Supramolecular Sensor Arrays Using Intramolecular/Intermolecular Interactions

To date, chemosensors have been vigorously researched in the field of supramolecular analytical chemistry because they can read out molecular recognition phenomena as visible optical changes. However, the synthesis of highly selective receptors, such as antibodies and enzymes, is not amenable, which might prevent the popularity of artificial receptors for use in practical analytical assessments. In that regard, an "array of chemosensors" can offer a high-throughput, accurate and simultaneous detections of multi-analytes, because the cross-reactivity of chemosensors is suitable to obtain information-rich data for pattern-recognition analysis. The problem of a high synthetic effort for a number of chemosensors for an array, however, still remains. Toward that end, we attempted to achieve multi-analyte detection using only a small number of chemosensors. In other words, the employment of intramolecular and/or intermolecular interactions for the fabrication of sensor arrays is a powerful method to simplify the sensing system. Because simpler arrays using intramolecular/intermolecular interactions can detect various types of analytes, even in biological fluids, our proposed systems of supramolecular sensors will be valuable tools in many fields in the near future.