The interest in functional supramolecular systems for the design of innovative materials and technologies, able to fundamentally change the world, is growing at a high pace. The huge array of publications that appeared in recent years in the global literature calls for systematization of the structural trends inherent in the formation of these systems revealed at different molecular platforms and practically useful properties they exhibit. The attention is concentrated on the topics related to functional supramolecular systems that are actively explored in institutes and universities of Russia in the last 10–15 years, such as the chemistry of host–guest complexes, crystal engineering, self-assembly and self-organization in solutions and at interfaces, biomimetics and molecular machines and devices.The bibliography includes 1714 references.

Calixarenes and related macrocycles have been shown to have antimicrobial effects since the 1950s. This review highlights the antimicrobial properties of almost 200 calixarenes, resorcinarenes, and pillararenes acting as prodrugs, drug delivery agents, and inhibitors of biofilm formation. A particularly important development in recent years has been the use of macrocycles with substituents terminating in sugars as biofilm inhibitors through their interactions with lectins. Although many examples exist where calixarenes encapsulate, or incorporate, antimicrobial drugs, one of the main factors to emerge is the ability of functionalized macrocycles to engage in multivalent interactions with proteins, and thus inhibit cellular aggregation.

A new water-soluble pillar[5]arene with an amide fragment and triethylammonium groups was synthesized by our original method of aminolysis of the ester groups. Using UV-spectroscopy, it is shown that cationic pillar[5]arenes are able to selectively form 1 : 1 complexes with some hydrophobic anions: the guests with bulky uncharged or negatively charged substituents hindering entry into the macrocycle cavity. Highly selective binding of the most lipophilic guest, methyl orange dye, in the form of organic anion salts by positively charged water-soluble pillar[5]arenes was detected. In the case of the azo dye the appropriate K_ass values were 10–100-fold higher than those calculated for the other sulfonic acid derivatives studied. The 2D NMR NOESY ¹H–¹H spectroscopy confirms the formation of the inclusion complex: negative charge sulfonate head is outside the cavity of pillar[5]arenes and the hydrophobic fragment of the guest is located in the cavity.