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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Construction of Cyclic Cell-Penetrating Peptides for Enhanced Penetration of Biological Barriers
Published on: September 19, 2022
Cation-halide transport through peptide pores containing aminopicolinic acid
Debajyoti Basak1, Sucheta Sridhar2, Amal K Bera2
1Department of Chemistry, Indian institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai 600036, India. nanditam@iitm.ac.in.
Abstract:
Synthetic pores that selectively transport ions of biological significance through membranes could be potentially used in medical diagnostics or therapeutics. Herein, we report cation-selective octapeptide pores derived from alanine and aminopicolinic acid. The ion transport mechanism through the pores has been established to be a cation-chloride symport. The cation-chloride co-transport is biologically essential for the efficient functioning of the central nervous system and has been implicated in diseases such as epilepsy. The pores formed in synthetic lipid bilayers do not exhibit any closing events. The ease of synthesis as well as infinite lifetimes of these pores provides scope for modifying their transport behaviour to develop sensors.
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