Pores Expand To Fit Proteins

Researchers have synthesized metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with pore apertures large enough to house protein molecules, up to 98 Å (Science, DOI 10.1126/sci​ence.1220131). Until now, pores in such materials that are larger than 32 Å have been difficult to achieve. MOFs are already important in industry and engineering for molecule storage and separation. Now, scientists are able to store biological molecules, including large organic molecules and proteins, within these material frameworks, reports an international team including Omar M. Yaghi and Hexiang Deng at UCLA. The group began its synthesis with a well-studied MOF, MOF-74, which contains linkers that have one phenylene ring. They expanded the linker structures by adding two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, and 11 phenylene rings, which produced a series of isoreticular structures having the same topology as the original MOF-74 but with sequentially larger pores.