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

Abstract

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.

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