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Design of Turn‐On Near‐Infrared Fluorescent Probes for Highly Sensitive and Selective Monitoring of Biopolymers
Author(s) -
Ducharme Gerard T.,
LaCasse Zane,
Sheth Tanya,
Nesterova Irina V.,
Nesterov Evgueni E.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202000108
Subject(s) - fluorescence , chromophore , chemistry , turn (biochemistry) , biosensor , small molecule , biopolymer , molecular binding , molecule , nanotechnology , biophysics , combinatorial chemistry , photochemistry , materials science , polymer , biochemistry , organic chemistry , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
Simple, sensitive, and selective detection of specific biopolymers is critical in a broad range of biomedical and technological areas. We present a design of turn‐on near‐infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes with intrinsically high signal‐to‐background ratio. The fluorescent signal generation mechanism is based on the aggregation/de‐aggregation of phthalocyanine chromophores controlled by selective binding of small‐molecule “anchor” groups to a specific binding site of a target biopolymer. As a proof‐of‐concept, we demonstrate a design of a sensor for EGFR tyrosine kinase—an important target in cancer research. The universality of the fluorescent signal generation mechanism, as well as the dependence of the response selectivity on the choice of the small‐molecule “anchor” group, make it possible to use this approach to design reliable turn‐on NIR fluorescent sensors for detecting specific protein targets present in the low‐nanomolar concentration range.