Braiding a molecular knot with eight crossings

Abstract

Three strands ironed closely together It is not uncommon when braiding hair or bread to intertwine three different strands. At the molecular level, however, synthetic knots have thus far been restricted to architectures accessible from two-strand braids. Danon et al. used iron ion coordination to guide three organic ligand strands to form a knot geometry with eight separate crossings. Science , this issue p. 159