Chemists have unveiled new supramolecular snub cubes—2,712-atom polyhedral assemblies made up of 12 identical helical macrocycles that are held together by 144 weak hydrogen bonds. Snub cubes are Archimedean solids with 60 edges, 38 faces, and 24 vertices. Snub cubes can be right- or left-handed, and these snub cube supramolecules can also be right- or left-handed, depending on the stereochemistry of the macrocyles used to make them. Each supramolecular snub cube has distinct compartments within its framework and can host two different guest components simultaneously. The new snub cube supramolecules’ creators say they could be used for chiral separations or asymmetric catalysis (Nature 2025, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08266-3).

Huang Wu and the late J. Fraser Stoddart of the University of Hong Kong along with Wenping Hu and Yu Wang of Tianjin University led the effort to make and characterize the snub cube supramolecules. The chemists say they were inspired by biological encapsulants like virus capsids and the iron-storing protein ferritin.

These aren’t the first supramolecular snub cubes. That was made in 1997 by Leonard R. MacGillivray and Jerry L. Atwood, who were both then at the University of Missouri–Columbia. That complex was held together by just 60 hydrogen bonds. The new snub cube supramolecules are the first to be made stereoselectively. The chemists were able to selectively make only right- or left-handed snub cubes using the stereochemistry of the starting helical macrocycles.

Shiki Yagai, who studies supramolecular materials at Chiba University and was not involved in the research, says the discovery that small chiral components can noncovalently assemble into chiral nanostructures without the help of proteins is “truly astonishing.” He says in an email that “this groundbreaking material exemplifies an extraordinary level of hierarchical self-organization, rivaling the complexity and sophistication of biological systems.”

Peter J. Stang, an expert in supramolecular assembly at the University of Utah who was also not involved in the work, says in an email that “this is bold, imaginative chemical science that moves the area of supramolecular chemistry forward and has the potential of providing a better understanding and insight of this exciting, broad field.”