Minimalistic Metabolite-Based Building Blocks for Supramolecular Functional Materials

Metabolites are the set of substances produced or utilized in the biochemical process of metabolism known to perform diverse physiological functions in every living organism. As very simple molecules, metabolites can self-assemble into functional materials for biomedical and nanotechnology applications. Simple amino acid-based crystals exhibit interesting physicochemical properties of piezoelectricity, fluorescence and optical waveguiding. Combinations of metal-coordinated metabolites display catalytic properties mimicking natural enzymes for chemical reactions and environmental remediation. Furthermore, excessive accumulation of metabolites spontaneously forms toxic assemblies implicated in the pathogenesis of metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases. Herein, we mainly review the progress of recent three years on the assembly of minimalistic metabolite-based building blocks into bionanomaterials and their potential applications in energy harvesting, optical waveguiding, enzymatic catalysis, and biomedicine. We hope this review can promote the understanding and development of metabolite materials to meet functional requirements.