Recent synthetic transport systems

Abstract

This critical review covers progress with synthetic transport systems, particularly ion channels and pores, between January 2006 and December 2009 in a comprehensive manner. This is the third part of a series launched in the year 2000, covering a rich collection of structural and functional motifs that should appeal to a broad audience of non-specialists, including to organic, biological, supramolecular and polymer chemists. Impressive breakthroughs have been achieved over the past four years in part because of a fruitful expansion toward new types of interactions, including metal-organic, π-π, aromatic electron donor-acceptor, anion-π or anion-macrodipole interactions as well as dynamic covalent bonds (169 references).

Nonprotonophoric Electrogenic Cl− Transport Mediated by Valinomycin-like Carriers

“…1,2 The most notable example of a small-molecule carrier is the naturally occurring K + carrier valinomycin (Figure 1), which has found many applications in the study of biological systems. 3 Valinomycin facilitates transmembrane K + transport by interfacial binding of K + , translocation of the cationic complex through the lipid membrane, release of K + at the other interface of the membrane, and eventually back transport of the uncomplexed valinomycin to complete the cycle (Figure 2B, left).…”

Anion receptor chemistry: highlights from 2008 and 2009

“…[85][86][87][88][89] Prodiginines are small natural products that represent the most widely studied transmembrane chloride transporters due to their alleged anticancer activity.…”

Fabrication of nanopores with ultrashort single-walled carbon nanotubes inserted in a lipid bilayer

“…Although several new types of nanopores have been developed over the past several years [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] , biological protein pores and SS-nanopores are still the two mainstays in nanopore research. Protein pores have the advantages of uniform pore size, high reproducibility and the capacity for precise modification by site-directed mutagenesis, chemical modification and incorporation of unnatural amino acids, whereas SS-nanopores possess intrinsically high durability and tunable pore size and shape.…”

“…The past decade has witnessed a burst of new nanopores made from different materials. These include biological nanopores such as Mycobacterium smegmatis porin A (MspA) 30 , phi29 connectors 31 , ferric hydroxamate uptake component A (FhuA) 32 and cytolysin A 33 ; carbon nanotubes [34][35][36] ; DNA nanostructures 37,38 ; organic macromolecules [39][40][41] ; and atomically thin 2D materials such as graphene [42][43][44] , boron nitride 45 and molybdenum disulfide 46 . Currently, most of the new nanopores are focused on nucleic acid analysis.…”