Concerted folding and networking of short peptides

Short peptide sequences have been concomitantly folded into a specific helical conformation and networked into a single crystal co-ordination material by silver(I) co-ordination.  The new material contained two types of chiral nanochannel.  The larger of the nanochannels, with a diameter of around 2nm, offered a high degree of both chiral recognition and biomolecular recognition.  BF₄^- counterions in the crystalline network could be exchanged with other anions in a single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation.

Coordination-Driven Folding and Assembly of a Short Peptide into a Protein-like Two-Nanometer-Sized Channel; T. Sawada et al, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201403506

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201403506/abstract