Information-containing macromolecules are polymers that contain a message encrypted in their comonomer sequences. The archetypal example of such a polymer is DNA, which is used in biology to store genetic information.[1] However, DNA is certainly not the only polymer that can contain molecular information.[2] In principle, a string of information can be created in any copolymer using two comonomers defined intentionally as 0-bit and 1-bit (Figure 1). However, such polymers have to be monodisperse and perfectly sequence-defined. In addition, the message encoded in their chains should be easily read.
　  In this lecture, Prof. Jean-François Lutz will present recent achievements obtained in his laboratory for the synthesis of information-containing macromolecules. Recent progress in the field of sequence-controlled polymers allows synthesis of unnatural macromolecules with precisely controlled primary and secondary structures.[3-6] For instance, monodisperse sequence-defined polymers were prepared using chemoselective iterative strategies.[7] Furthermore, the readability of these polymers will be presented. For instance the sequencing of unnatural sequence-defined copolymers by tandem mass spectrometry will be discussed.[7]

Figure 1. Schematic representation of an information-containing macromolecule containing a monomer-encoded binary code. Reprinted from reference 2. © Nature Publishing Group 2014.

References:
[1] Lutz, J.-F., Ouchi, M.; Liu, D. R.; Sawamoto, M. Science 2013, 341, 628
[2] Colquhoun, H. M.; Lutz, J.-F. Nature Chem. 2014, 6, 455-456
[3] Giuseppone, N.; Lutz, J.-F. Nature 2011, 473, 40-41
[4] Lutz, J.-F. Nature Chem. 2010, 2, 84-85
[5] Ouchi, M.; Badi, N.; Lutz, J.-F.; Sawamoto M. Nature Chem. 2011, 3, 917-924