Metal-containing oligomers, dendrimers and biopolymers

Transition metal complexes encompass a large and exceptional pool of building blocks with diverse stereochemical, electrochemical and photophysical features. This mini-account presents efforts to advance the organic chemistry of coordination compounds, where functionalized complexes are viewed as synthetic building blocks. Selective synthetic transformations, conducted on the periphery of coordinatively saturated metal complexes, are shown to facilitate the fabrication of sophisticated complexes, multimetallic arrays, and metal-containing biopolymers. In addition, the utilization of novel phenanthrolines as tunable fluorophores, as well as for the assembly of hyperbranched structures and sensory oligonucleotides, is described. (C) 2003 Academie des sciences. Published by Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.