End group engineering of artificial ion channels

Abstract

Toward developing nanostructures for single molecule detection, we report the synthesis of new derivatives of artificial devices that possess ion channel activity. The membrane stability and the ion transport ability of these multiple crown α-helical peptides have been optimized by modulating the polarity of N- and C-terminal groups with incorporation of hydrophilic non-ionic units. Circular dichroism and ATR studies confirmed the α-helical conformation and membrane incorporation of new nanostructures while 23Na NMR assays shown a significant increase of their ion transport ability.