Construction of an enterobactin analogue with symmetrically arranged monomer subunits of ferritin.

A set of three catecholamide ligands mimicking the structure of enterobactin was constructed on ferritin, where the 3-fold symmetric arrangement of the monomer subunits served as a foundation to form a coordination space. Similar to enterobactin, the ligands showed strong affinity for the ferric ion and formed a tris-catechoyl complex. Crystallography revealed that the complex was embedded in the entrance of the 3-fold axis channel.