Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Su, Dan‐Dan
• Ulrich, Sébastien
• Barboiu, Mihail

Titel

Bis‐Alkylureido Imidazole Artificial Water Channels

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2023-08, Vol.62 (35), p.e202306265-n/a

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Germany: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Nature creates aquaporins to effectively transport water, rejecting all ions including protons. Aquaporins (AQPs) has brought inspiration for the development of Artificial Water Channels (AWCs). Imidazole‐quartet (I‐quartet) was the first AWC that enabled to self‐assemble a tubular backbone for rapid water and proton permeation with total ion rejection. Here, we report the discovery of bis‐alkylureido imidazole compounds, which outperform the I‐quartets by exhibiting ≈3 times higher net and single channel permeabilities (107 H2O/s/channel) and a ≈2–3 times lower proton conductance. The higher water conductance regime is associated to the high partition of more hydrophobic bis‐alkylureido channels in the membrane and to their pore sizes, experiencing larger fluctuations, leading to an increase in the number of water molecules in the channel, with decreasing H‐bonding connectivity. This new class of AWCs will open new pathways toward scalable membranes with enhanced water transport performances. Bis‐alkylureido‐imidazoles have been used to construct artificial water channels presenting increased water transport and lower H+ translocation activities than monosubstituted I‐quartets across lipid bilayers. These studies shed light on potential mechanisms of biological proton/water translocation and inspire novel designs for engineering artificial water channels membranes.