Effective Binding and Sensing of Lipopolysaccharide: Combining Complementary Pattern Recognition Receptors

Nature inspired: A synthetic receptor (see picture) that exploits two zinc(II) ions and four convergent amino hydrogen bonding groups binds lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) almost as strongly as the LPS binding protein. This feature is exploited to electrochemically distinguish LPS from other pathogens in water and in complex biological mixtures. Zn pink, N blue, P orange, O red.