Intense current interest in supramolecular chemistry is devoted to the construction of molecular assemblies displaying controlled molecular motion associated to recognition. On this ground, molecular clips and tweezers have focused an increasing attention. This tutorial review points out the recent advances in the construction of always more sophisticated molecular clips and tweezers, illustrating their remarkably broad structural variety and focusing on their binding ability towards neutral guests. A particular attention is brought to recent findings in dynamic molecular tweezers whose recognition ability can be regulated by external stimuli. Porphyrin-based systems will not be covered here as this very active field has been recently reviewed.

The emblematic perylenediimide (PDI) motif which was initially used as a simple dye has undergone incredible development in recent decades. The increasing power of synthetic organic chemistry has allowed it to decorate PDIs to achieve highly functional dyes. As these PDI derivatives combine thermal, chemical and photostability, with an additional high absorption coefficient and near-unity fluorescence quantum yield, they have been widely studied for applications in materials science, particularly in photovoltaics. Although PDIs have always been in the spotlight, their asymmetric counterparts, perylenemonoimide (PMI) analogues, are now experiencing a resurgence of interest with new efforts to create architectures with equally exciting properties. Namely, their exceptional fluorescence properties have recently been used to develop novel systems for applications in bioimaging, biosensing and photodynamic therapy. This review covers the state of the art in the synthesis, photophysical characterizations and recently reported applications demonstrating the versatility of these two sister PDI and PMI compounds. The objective is to show that after well-known applications in materials science, the emerging trends in the use of PDI- and PMI-based derivatives concern very specific biomedicinal applications including drug delivery, diagnostics and theranostics.