Miniaturized Chemical Tags for Optical Imaging

Abstract

Recent advances in optical bioimaging have prompted the need for minimal chemical reporters that can retain the molecular recognition properties and activity profiles of biomolecules. As a result, several methodologies to reduce the size of fluorescent and Raman labels to a few atoms (e.g., single aryl fluorophores, Raman active triple bonds and isotopes) and embed them into building blocks (e.g., amino acids, nucleobases, sugars) to construct native-like supramolecular structures have been described. The integration of small optical reporters into biomolecules has also led to smart molecular entities that were previously inaccessible in an expedite manner. In this article, we review recent chemical approaches to synthesize miniaturized optical tags as well as some of their multiple applications in biological imaging.

Site-specific covalent metalation of DNA oligonucleotides with phosphorescent platinum(ii) complexes

“…Tethering a phosphorescent tag to a nucleic acid is of high interest. Compared to commonly applied fluorophores, 42 a phosphorescent tag represents a tremendous advantage in anticipated in vitro experiments because of the suppression of background fluorescence in time-gated measurements. The Pt(II)-modified nucleic acids described here represent excellent candidates for such an application.…”

Synthesis and Fluorescent Properties of Alkynyl- and Alkenyl-Fused Benzotriazole-Derived α-Amino Acids

“…Fluorescence spectroscopy has become a powerful technique for the investigation of biological structure and function, and for visualizing cellular processes at the molecular level . In combination with the advances in fluorescent-based technology, libraries of small-molecule probes containing chromophores that are tuned for specific applications have been reported .…”

“…Fluorescence spectroscopy has become a powerful technique for the investigation of biological structure and function, and for visualizing cellular processes at the molecular level. 1 In combination with the advances in fluorescent-based technology, libraries of small-molecule probes containing chromophores that are tuned for specific applications have been reported. 2 As peptides and proteins are important for a wide range of biological processes, there has been significant interest in the discovery of fluorescent, unnatural α-amino acids that can be specifically incorporated into a protein, while retaining the original structure and function.…”

Multifunctional stimuli-responsive chemogenetic platform for conditional multicolor cell-selective labeling

“…Besides manipulation of FASTs, ligand engineering is an alternative approach with the potential to achieve multicolor selective labeling based on the identical FAST, which has yet to be demonstrated. The rationally designed ligands capable of responding to particular targets independently [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] may offer an opportunity to realize not only conditional selective labeling, Please do not adjust margins Please do not adjust margins but also multicolor selective labeling. Given that complex biological samples include many diverse cell types, cellular heterogeneity in phenotypes and genotypes, a fundamental property of cellular ecosystems, [26][27][28] might function as a key factor to enable conditional multicolor labeling of specific cell types of interest.…”