RESUMEN
The adsorption of phenylaniline (Phe) enantiomers on (+)-polyaniline (PAN)-chelated [In(OH)(bdc)]n microcrystals was carefully designed and studied by using the Job titration, circular dichroism, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and photoluminescence to mimic heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein)-coupled receptors in selective, but not specific, ligand binding with chiral recognition and signal transduction. Six essential working principles across different length scales are unraveled: 1)â a chiral (+)-PAN (host), 2)â specific sites for Phe-(+)/PAN (guest-host) binding, 3)â a conformational change of (+)-PAN after binding with Phe enantiomers, 4)â different degrees of packing for (+)-PAN, 5)â interactions between (+)-PAN and the underlying signal-generating framework (i.e., [In(OH)(bdc)]n microcrystals), and 6)â a systematic photoluminescent signal combination by using principal-component analysis from the other three polymer-chelated metal-organic frameworkds (MOFs), such as poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), sodium alginate (SA), and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to enhance the selectivity and discrimination capabilities.