Metal ion release and signaling in molecular logic gate design

Abstract

Mimicking the biological structures is one of the main goals of the natural sciences, because processes are well-organized in nature despite its amazing complexity. On account of this, releasing metal ions at molecular level is a crucial topic owing to similar process in living organisms. In this thesis, we designed novel cage compounds for this purpose. Our novel cage molecule is activated with near-IR light while almost all of the cage compounds in the previous literature function in the UV region. Consequently, it is appropriate for using in biological systems. Release of zinc ions that has critical roles in human body successfully achieved by our novel compound in Part 2 of the thesis work. Molecular logic concept is one of the promising areas of chemistry. Today, electronic devices consists of silicon based circuits that process information by using binary logic. Molecular logic offers alternative for silicon based devices. Using molecules to process data is a promising idea in the fields from electronics to biotechnology. In part 3, we proposed AND gate whose inputs are pH and glutathione while the response is singlet oxygen which can be used to destroy cancer cells. It is possible to process much complicated information by combining more than one logic gate. In first part of the thesis study, we designed modular molecular logic gates by cascading of three logic gates via metal ion signals. In the last part, a fluorescent chemosensor was proposed for dopamine molecule, which is crucial in a number of biological processes at the human body.