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Extraordinary Modulation of Disulfide Redox‐Responsiveness by Cooperativity of Twin‐Disulfide Bonds
Author(s) -
Zhai Linxiang,
Liang Jingjing,
Guo Xiangqun,
Zhao Yibing,
Wu Chuanliu
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201404909
Subject(s) - disulfide bond , cooperativity , linker , chemistry , redox , combinatorial chemistry , reducing agent , protein stability , organic chemistry , biochemistry , computer science , operating system
Disulfide bonds have frequently been incorporated into synthetic materials to promote sensitivity of the systems towards different redox environments. Although many strategies have been developed to rationally tune the stability of disulfide linkers, methods to tune their responsiveness towards different redox environments remain elusive. In this work we have developed and explored a disulfide linker bearing two independent disulfide bonds, referred to as a twin‐disulfide linker. We have demonstrated that the twin‐disulfide linker displays an ultrahigh stability at lower concentrations of reducing agent or in weakly reducing environments without a significant compromise in the sensitivity of its response to highly reducing environments such as cytoplasm, a feature that is in remarkable contrast to the traditional single disulfide bonds. Such an extraordinary responsiveness arises from the cooperativity of the twin‐disulfide bonds, which should be of particular interest for applications such as controlled drug delivery and sensing, because relatively large differences in disulfide stability in different redox environments is desired in these applications.