The derivatization of 3-amino-9-ethylcarbazole with a diamino-alkyl anchor affords a fluorescent dye suitable for indicator displacement from cucurbituril macrocycles. The novel compound 1 shows, due to a complexation-induced pKa shift, a large and predictable dual fluorescence response (100-fold increase at 375 nm and 9-fold decrease at 458 nm) upon supramolecular encapsulation and a strong affinity for cation-receptor macrocycles, in particular cucurbit[6]uril (CB6). A direct application is presented by monitoring the enzymatic activity of lysine decarboxylase.

The pD dependence of the complexation of p-sulfonatocalix[4]arene (CX4) with the azoalkanes 2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene (1), 2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-ene (2), 2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.3]non-2-ene (3), and 1-methyl-4-isopropyl-2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-ene (4) in D(2)O has been studied. The pD-dependent binding constants, determined by (1)H NMR spectroscopy, were analyzed according to a seven-state model, which included the CX4 tetra- and penta-anions, the protonated and unprotonated forms of the azoalkanes, the corresponding complexes, as well as the complex formed between CX4 and the deuteriated hydronium ion. The variation of the UV absorption spectra, namely the hypsochromic shift in the near-UV band of the azo chromophore upon protonation, was analyzed according to a four-state model. Measurements by independent methods demonstrated that complexation by CX4 shifts the pK(a) values of the guest molecules by around 2 units, thereby establishing a case of host-assisted guest protonation. The pK(a) shift can be translated into improved binding (factor of 100) of the protonated guest relative to its unprotonated form as a result of the cation-receptor properties of CX4. The results are discussed in the context of supramolecular catalytic activity and the pK(a) shifts induced by different types of macrocyclic hosts are compared.

The structural and dynamic properties of a flexible peptidic chain codetermine its biological activity. These properties are imprinted in intrachain site-to-site distances as well as in diffusion coefficients of mutual site-to-site motion. Both distance distribution and diffusion determine the extent of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between two chain sites labeled with a FRET donor and acceptor. Both could be obtained from time-resolved FRET measurements if their individual contributions to the FRET efficiency could be systematically varied. Because the FRET diffusion enhancement (FDE) depends on the donor-fluorescence lifetime, it has been proposed that the FDE can be reduced by shortening the donor lifetime through an external quencher. Benefiting from the high diffusion sensitivity of short-distance FRET, we tested this concept experimentally on a (Gly-Ser)(6) segment labeled with the donor/acceptor pair naphthylalanine/2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-ene (NAla/Dbo). Surprisingly, the very effective quencher potassium iodide (KI) had no effect at all on the average donor-acceptor distance, although the donor lifetime was shortened from ca. 36 ns in the absence of KI to ca. 3 ns in the presence of 30 mM KI. We show that the proposed approach had to fail because it is not the experimentally observed but the radiative donor lifetime that controls the FDE. Because of that, any FRET ensemble measurement can easily underestimate diffusion and might be misleading even if it employs the Haas-Steinberg diffusion equation (HSE). An extension of traditional FRET analysis allowed us to evaluate HSE simulations and to corroborate as well as generalize the experimental results. We demonstrate that diffusion-enhanced FRET depends on the radiative donor lifetime as it depends on the diffusion coefficient, a useful symmetry that can directly be applied to distinguish dynamic and structural effects of viscous cosolvents on the polymer chain. We demonstrate that the effective FRET rate and the recovered donor-acceptor distance depend on the quantum yield, most strongly in the absence of diffusion, which has to be accounted for in the interpretation of distance trends monitored by FRET.

Protein folding can be described as a probabilistic succession of events in which the peptide chain forms loops closed by specific amino acid residue contacts, herein referred to as loop nodes. To measure loop rates, several photophysical methods have been introduced where a pair of optically active probes is incorporated at selected chain positions and the excited probe undergoes contact quenching (CQ) upon collision with the second probe. The quenching mechanisms involved triplet-triplet energy transfer, photoinduced electron transfer, and collision-induced fluorescence quenching, where the fluorescence of Dbo, an asparagine residue conjugated to 2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane, is quenched by tryptophan. The discrepancy between the loop rates afforded from these three CQ techniques has, however, remained unresolved. In analyzing this discrepancy, we now report two short-distance FRET methods where Dbo acts as an energy acceptor in combination with tryptophan and naphtylalanine, two donors with largely different fluorescence lifetimes of 1.3 and 33 ns, respectively. Despite the different quenching mechanisms, the rates from FRET and CQ methods were, surprisingly, of comparable magnitude. This combination of FRET and CQ data led to a unifying physical model and to the conclusion that the rate of loop formation in folding reactions varies not only with the kind and number of residues that constitute the chain but also in particular with the size and properties of the residues that constitute the loop node.

Two novel derivatives of 2,3-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-ene were synthesized, carrying a carboxyl (4) and a methylcarboxyl (5) substituent at the bridgehead position. The photodecomposition quantum yields (51% for 4 and 2.9% for 5) and fluorescence lifetimes (29 ns for 4 and 345 ns for 5) in water were determined. The higher photoreactivity and fluorescence quenching for 4 was attributed to its higher propensity to undergo photochemical elimination of nitrogen as a consequence of the presence of the radical-stabilizing carboxyl group in the α-position. The absolute photodecomposition rate constants of 4 became faster upon protonation (e.g., at pH 2), which contrasted anticipated substituent effects on the C-N bonds strengths. ) which was attributed to reduced Coulomb attractions as a consequence of the 1,3-alternate conformation which this host adopts in water. The binding constants towards β-cyclodextrin were also low at pH 7.0 (< 120 M -1 ), which was attributed to the low hydrophobicity of the anionic form of the guests; in line with this interpretation, the binding constants with β-cyclodextrin increased at pH 2.0, by about one order of magnitude.