1.D.238. The Artificial Supramolecular Lithium Channel (ASLC) Family
Lithium ions have been applied in the clinic in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Zhang et al. 2023 reported making artificial supramolecular lithium channels composed of pore-containing small aromatic molecules. By adjusting the lumen size and coordination numbers, they found that one of the supramolecular channels developed showed unprecedented transmembrane transport of exogenous lithium ions with a Li+ /Na+ selectivity ratio of 23.0, which is in the same level of that of natural Na+ channels. Four coordination sites inside channels were found to be the basic requirement for ion transport function. This artificial lithium channel displays low transport of physiological Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ ions. This highly selective Li+ channel may become an important tool for studying the physiological role of intracellular lithium ions (Zhang et al. 2023 ).