Abstract
Lithium ions have been applied in the clinic in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. In this work, we report artificial supramolecular lithium channels composed of pore-containing small aromatic molecules. By adjusting the lumen size and coordination numbers, we found that one of the supramolecular channels developed shows unprecedented transmembrane transport of exogenous lithium ions with a Li+ /Na+ selectivity ratio of 23.0, which is in the same level of that of natural Na+ channels. Furthermore, four coordination sites inside channels are found to be the basic requirement for ion transport function. Importantly, this artificial lithium channel displays very low transport of physiological Na+ , K+ , Mg2+ , and Ca2+ ions. This highly selective Li+ channel may become an important tool for studying the physiological role of intracellular lithium ions, especially in the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
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