Allosteric cooperativity in ternary complexes with low symmetry

Two new naphthotubes with ester linkers were synthesized and characterized. With the syn isomers of an ester naphthotube and an ether naphthotube, strong positive allosteric cooperativity in a ternary complex with two different hosts on one guest was achieved. This paves the way to construct robust supramolecular architectures with high complexity and diversity.