Molecular design of synthetic receptors with dynamic, imprinting, and allosteric functions

Sugar recognition in an aqueous system has been achieved using a boronic acid-diol interaction. Combination with an intramolecular amino group has enabled us to read out the binding process as a change in the fluorescence intensity. The novel interaction has been extended to dynamic sugar sensing utilizing an allosteric effect, molecular imprinting, and control of molecular assemblies. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.