pH-Responsive molecular tweezers.

Molecular tweezers are dynamic devices that are able to switch from one conformation to another upon stimulation by an external trigger. In this work, we report a new water-soluble macromolecular carrier bearing a pH-responsive molecular tweezer, whose affinity for a substrate depends on the external pH. The conformational change of the switching unit was evidenced by (1)H NMR spectroscopy, and fluorescence studies conducted in aqueous media demonstrated the ability of the carrier to bind to substrates in a pH-dependent fashion.