Folding and assembly are intra- and inter-molecular processes, respectively, for spontaneously generating predetermined, well-defined molecular structures. Though the cooperative processes of these mechanisms have been studied in coiled coils and β-sheets, they have been seldom utilized simultaneously in the synthetic fields. We have been developing a new folding-and-assembly (F&A) strategy, in which the folding and metal-directed self-assembly of a short peptide fragment occur simultaneously by helping and inducing the processes of each other. Depending on the sequence design, each short peptide ligand exhibits a specific conformation during metal coordination and simultaneously assembles into an advanced nanostructure, which has been hardly achieved by known synthetic strategies. The concepts, examples of the F&A strategy, the function of the obtained structures as well as future directions are disclosed in this perspective.

折叠和组装分别是分子内和分子间过程，用于自发产生预定的，定义明确的分子结构。尽管已经在线圈和β片中研究了这些机理的协同过程，但在合成领域却很少同时使用它们。我们一直在开发一种新的折叠和组装（F＆A）策略，其中通过相互帮助和诱导彼此的过程，同时发生短肽片段的折叠和金属定向自组装。根据序列设计，每个短肽配体在金属配位过程中均显示特定构象，并同时组装成先进的纳米结构，这很难通过已知的合成策略实现。F＆A策略的概念，示例，