Highly Selective Artificial Potassium Ion Channels Constructed from Pore-Containing Helical Oligomers

Potassium ion channels specifically transport K⁺ ions over Na⁺ ions across a cell membrane. A queue of four binding sites in the K⁺ channel pore plays significant roles during highly selective conduction. A kind of aromatic helical oligomer was synthesized that can selectively bind K⁺ over Na⁺ . By aromatic stacking of helical oligomers, a type of artificial K⁺ channels with contiguous K⁺ binding sites was constructed. Such artificial channels exhibited exceptionally high K⁺ /Na⁺ selectivity ratios during transmembrane ion conduction.