The design, synthesis and structural characterization of lipid coordination polymers with DNA-delivery properties was carried out. Two levels of molecular self-assembly were established in these systems: first, coordination-directed self-assembly formed the primary one-dimensional network, and second, the lipid-directed self-assembly induced by the hydrophobic effect in water formed the supramolecular tertiary structure and resulted in water dispersable nanoscale toroids. The tridentate ligands N 1 -(2-Undec-10-enylamino-ethyl)-ethane-1,2-diamine and Synthesis of 1-Undec-10-enyl-[1,4,7]triazonane were synthesized using a solvent-free reaction with the 11-bromo-1-undecene and with THF solvent and the same 11-bromo-1-undecene, respectively. The two coordination polymers prepared were characterized with single-crystal X-ray crystallography. Their corresponding tertiary structure in water was characterized with Optical Fluorescent Microscopy, Dynamic Light Scattering(DLS), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The resulting supramolecular structures that adopted a tertiary toroid structure were able to condense DNA plasmids such as pEGFP-N1 and delivery them to T291 kidney cells with 12% and 15% efficiency.
