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Supramolecular fibers are prominent structures in biology and chemistry. A quantitative understanding of molecular exchange pathways in these one-dimensional aggregates was obtained by a combination of super-resolution stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy and stochastic simulation. The potential of this methodology is demonstrated with a set of well-defined synthetic building blocks that self-assemble into supramolecular fibrils. Previous ensemble measurements hid all molecular phenomena underpinning monomer exchange, but the molecular pathway determined from single-aggregate studies revealed unexpected homogeneous exchange along the polymer backbone. These results pave the way for experimental investigation of the structure and exchange pathways of synthetic and natural supramolecular fibers.
Albertazzi et al. (2014) studied this question.