Recent advances in β-cyclodextrin-based materials for chiral recognition

Abstract

In nature, enantiomers are pairs of chiral compounds, and have semblable chemical and physical properties but mostly show opposite biological effects when they enter an organism. Therefore, chiral recognition has a crucial research value in the fields of medicine, food, biochemistry, etc. Cyclodextrins (CDs) are produced by cyclodextrin glucosyltransferase in some species of bacillus on starch and include three main members α-, β-, and γ-CD with six, seven and eight units of glucose, respectively. With a hydrophilic external cavity and a hydrophobic internal cavity, β-CD can also combine with a variety of materials (e.g., graphene, nanoparticles, COFs, and OFETs) to enhance the chiral recognition of guest molecules in a chiral sensor. This review presents the progress of β-CD modification with different materials for chiral recognition and describes in detail how different materials assist β-CD in chiral recognition and improve the effect of β-CD chiral discrimination.