Construction of Insulin 18-mer Nanoassemblies Driven by Coordination to Iron(II) and Zinc(II) Ions at Distinct Sites.
Controlled self-assembly (SA) of proteins offers the possibility to tune their properties or to create new materials. Herein, we present the synthesis of a modified human insulin (HI) with two distinct metal-ion binding sites, one native, the other abiotic, enabling hierarchical SA through coordination with two different metal ions. Selective attachment of an abiotic 2,2'-bipyridine (bipy) ligand