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Updated: Jul 15, 2025

Optical Tweezers to Study RNA-Protein Interactions in Translation Regulation
Published on: February 12, 2022
Hard-Soft Cooperativity of an Allosteric Tweezer
Suk-Il Kang1, Hyun Lee1, Sungryul Bae1
1Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea.
None:
Drawing inspiration from allosteric proteins, a zigzag-shaped π-conjugation was structurally engineered into a tweezer-like ionophore having multiple disparate binding sites. When a soft metal ion binds to the central tridentate ligand motif, the rigid backbone folds, bringing two macrocyclic arms into close proximity. Stabilized by a coordinating anion, the tweezer-like conformation of the resulting metalloligand recruits a hard cation to form a sandwich-like complex with a remarkably enhanced binding affinity and selectivity.
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