Bile acid derivatives as enantiodifferentiating host molecules in inclusion processes

A review on the use of bile acids as hosts for molecular recognition and enantioresolution is presented. The optical resolution of different classes of organic derivatives, i.e., lactones, aliphatic alcohols, sulfoxides, epoxides, ketones, cyclic amides, cyclic carbonates, and sulfites, may be obtained by host-guest enantioselective inclusion complexation. The salient aspects of the enclathration process, including X-ray diffraction results, are discussed.