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.