Molecular design of artificial molecular and ion recognition systems with allosteric guest responses.

Positive or negative allosterisms are ubiquitously seen in nature where the biological events must be efficiently regulated in response to chemical or physical signals from the outside world. The biomimetic design of such allosteric systems is of great significance in order to regulate the complexation ability or the catalytic activity of artificial receptors according to an allosteric manner. Furthermore, the methodology is very useful to amplify and convert weak chemical or physical signals into other signals which are convenient for us to read out and record. Allosteric systems are classified into four different categories: positive heterotropic, negative heterotropic, positive homotropic, and negative homotropic. In this Account, we account for our artificial allosteric systems and discuss the basic concept for molecular design of such allosteric systems and what kinds of new functions come out of such dynamic systems.