Template-directed synthesis of multi-component organic cages in water

We describe here the discovery of a new class of organic cages assembled from simple tri- and dithiol building blocks using dynamic combinatorial chemistry (DCC). These water-soluble disulfide-linked architectures containing up to eleven components are only generated upon templation by positively charged polyamine guests of appropriate shape and length such as spermine and spermidine. The overall response of the system as expressed in the pattern of peaks in an HPLC trace provides an unusual tool for the identification of the templating analyte.