Talukdar P Bollot G Mareda J Sakai N Matile S 2005 Supramolecular pi-stack architecture is fundamental in DNA chemistry but absent in biological and synthetic ion channels and pores. Here, a novel rigid-rod pi-stack architecture is introduced to create synthetic ion channels with characteristics that are at the forefront of rational design, that is, ligand gating by a conformational change of the functional supramolecule. Namely, the intercalation of electron-rich aromatics is designed to untwist inactive electron-poor helical pi-stacks without internal space into open barrel-stave ion channels. Conductance experiments in planar lipid bilayers corroborate results from spherical bilayers and molecular modeling: Highly cooperative and highly selective ligand gating produces small, long-lived, weakly anion selective, ohmic ion channels. Structural studies conducted under conditions relevant for function provide experimental support for helix-barrel transition as origin of ligand gating. Control experiments demonstrate that minor structural changes leading to internal decrowding suffice to cleanly annihilate chiral self-organization and function. https://sonar.ch/global/documents/49835 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1002/chem.200500516 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/16118825 Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany). - 2005 Crystallography, X-Ray DNA Ion Channel Gating Ion Channels Ligands Lipid Bilayers Models, Molecular Molecular Structure Ligand-gated synthetic ion channels. http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501