Biological anion receptors

8 Mangani, S. and Ferraroni, M., Natural anion receptors anion recognition by proteins , in Supramolecular Chemistry of Anions, Bianchi, A., Bowman-James, K. and Garcia-Espana, E. (eds), Wiley New York, 1997, 63-78. 

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Despite the prominence of anion recognition chemistry in biological systems, the design of supramolecular anion receptors was slow to develop with respect to the analogous chemistry of cations, and this discrepancy may readily be traced to a number of inherent difficulties in anion binding ... 

The development of anion coordination chemistry and anion receptor molecules has opened up the possibility to perform molecular catalysis on anionic substrates of chemical and biochemical interest, such as adenosine triphosphate. The catalysis of phosphoryl transfer is of particular interest, namely in view of the crucial role of such processes in biology and of the numerous enzymes that catalyse them. 

In recent years anion receptors based on peptides (oligomers of amino acids) have become of increasing interest, not least because of their resemblance to biological receptors. The archetypal example is the antibiotic vancomycin illustrated in Section 1.5. Vancomycin binds to the L-Lys-D-Ala-D-Ala... 

Biological anion binding proteins and naturally occurring receptors such as the prodigiosins provide much of the inspiration for anion receptor chemistry. 

In the near future, it must be hoped that anion coordination chemists can provide further devices, be they catalytic, sensing, or medicinal and that biological anions will be able to be fully addressed, both efficiently and selectively in their natural environment. Hopefully, the field of anion recognition will reach a similar stage to cation recognition where, when a particular cation is to be bound, the coordination chemist reaches out for a well established and specific receptor. 

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