Spatial, Hysteretic, and Adaptive Host-Guest Chemistry in a Metal-Organic Framework with Open Watson-Crick Sites

Biological and artificial molecules and assemblies capable of supramolecular recognition, especially those with nucleobase pairing, usually rely on autonomous or collective binding to function. Advanced site-specific recognition takes advantage of cooperative spatial effects, as in local folding in protein-DNA binding. Herein, we report a new nucleobase-tagged metal-organic framework (MOF), namely ZnBTCA (BTC=benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxyl, A=adenine), in which the exposed Watson-Crick faces of adenine residues are immobilized periodically on the interior crystalline surface. Systematic control experiments demonstrated the cooperation of the open Watson-Crick sites and spatial effects within the nanopores, and thermodynamic and kinetic studies revealed a hysteretic host-guest interaction attributed to mild chemisorption. We further exploited this behavior for adenine-thymine binding within the constrained pores, and a globally adaptive response of the MOF host was observed.