Work in this area was recognized with the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Bernard L. Feringa, Jean-Pierre Sauvage, and J. Fraser Stoddart.
Although research into mechanically interlocked molecular architectures is primarily focused on artificial compounds, many examples have been found in biological systems including: cystine knots, cyclotides or lasso-peptides such as microcin J25 which are proteins, and a variety of peptides.
Examples of such molecules are rotaxanes, catenanes with covalently linked rings (so-called pretzelanes), and open knots (pseudoknots) which are abundant in proteins.
The idea of residual topological isomerism introduces a handy scheme of modifying the molecular graphs and generalizes former efforts of systemization of mechanically bound and bridged molecules.
Two postdoctoral researchers who took on the challenge of producing [5]catenane (olympiadane) pushed the boundaries of the complexity of MIMAs that could be synthesized their success was confirmed in 1996 by a solid‐state structure analysis conducted by David Williams.
This increased strength is demonstrated by the necessity of harsher conditions to remove a metal template ion from catenanes as opposed to their non-mechanically bonded analogues.