Supramolecular Self-Assembly Based on Natural Small Molecules

Natural products have been widely used in the construction of supramolecular self-assemblies due to not only their abundant resources, unique chiral structures, and multiple reaction sites, but also the good biocompatibility and the controllable degradability. Through the simple chemical modification natural products-based functional molecules would self-assemble into various supramolecular assemblies primarily promoted by non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, pi-pi stacking, van der Waals forces, electrostatic interactions, and charge-transfer interactions. During the assembly process, their unique molecular chirality would be transferred and magnified into supramolecular assemblies, thus providing a facile method to fabricate helical ribbons, nanotubes, and other chiral nanostructures. Furthermore, their good biocompatibility and biological activity endow the assemblies with the ability to be widely applied in tissue engineering, drug delivery, cell imaging, and so on. In this review, recent developments of supramolecular self-assemblies based on amino acids, sugars, nucleosides, steroids, triterpenoids and other natural products were summarized.