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Side-chain control of porosity closure in single- and multiple-peptide-based porous materials by cooperative folding

Nature Chemistry volume 6, pages 343–351 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Porous materials are attractive for separation and catalysis—these applications rely on selective interactions between host materials and guests. In metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), these interactions can be controlled through a flexible structural response to the presence of guests. Here we report a MOF that consists of glycyl–serine dipeptides coordinated to metal centres, and has a structure that evolves from a solvated porous state to a desolvated non-porous state as a result of ordered cooperative, displacive and conformational changes of the peptide. This behaviour is driven by hydrogen bonding that involves the side-chain hydroxyl groups of the serine. A similar cooperative closure (reminiscent of the folding of proteins) is also displayed with multipeptide solid solutions. For these, the combination of different sequences of amino acids controls the framework's response to the presence of guests in a nonlinear way. This functional control can be compared to the effect of single-point mutations in proteins, in which exchange of single amino acids can radically alter structure and function.

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Figure 1: Structure of solvated/open ZnGS2.
Figure 2: Porosity and powder diffraction data of Zn(GS)2 and multiple-peptide MOFs.
Figure 3: Ordered nature of the local environment in solvated/open and guest-free/closed Zn[(GS)0.75(GT)0.25]2.
Figure 4: Structure of desolvated Zn[(GS)0.75(GT)0.25]2 and metrics of the structural transformation.
Figure 5: Computational modelling of the cooperative peptide-folding closure mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

Research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under EP/H000925 and EP/J008834. C.M.G. thanks the European Union for a Marie Curie Fellowship (IEF-253369). Via our membership of the UK's high-performance computing Materials Chemistry Consortium, funded by EPSRC (EP/F067496), this work made use of the facilities of HECToR, the UK's national high-performance computing service. We also thank the support of the Diamond Light Source and Anna Warren.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZD, UK

    C. Martí-Gastaldo, D. Antypov, J. E. Warren, M. E. Briggs, P. A. Chater, P. V. Wiper, G. J. Miller, Y. Z. Khimyak, G. R. Darling, N. G. Berry & M. J. Rosseinsky

  2. School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Y. Z. Khimyak

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Contributions

C.M.G and M.J.R conceived the research, designed the experiments and co-wrote the paper. C.M.G synthesized the materials and carried out the adsorption experiments and their analysis. D.A. designed and performed the theoretical simulations under the guidance of G.R.D., and N.G.B., J.E.W., P.A.C. and G.M. performed the structural analyses. Y.Z.K. and P.V.W. carried out and analysed the solid-state CP/MAS NMR experiments. M.E.B. performed NMR spectroscopy on multiple-peptide MOFs. All the authors discussed the results and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to M. J. Rosseinsky.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary information (PDF 9788 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for ZnGS2 (sntB00014C1). (CIF 283 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for Zn[(GA)0.5(GS)0.5]2 (B00113). (CIF 391 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for Zn[(GA)0.5(GT)0.5]2 (B00122). (CIF 404 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for compound Zn[(GS)0.5(GT)0.5]2 (B00117). (CIF 204 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for compound Zn[(GS)0.75(GT)0.25]2 (MJR0981). (CIF 17 kb)

Supplementary information

Crystallographic data for compound desolvated Zn[(GS)0.75(GT)0.25]2 (MJR0981post). (CIF 16 kb)

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Martí-Gastaldo, C., Antypov, D., Warren, J. et al. Side-chain control of porosity closure in single- and multiple-peptide-based porous materials by cooperative folding. Nature Chem 6, 343–351 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1871

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