Fokin Valery V
Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
ACS Chem Biol. 2007 Dec 21;2(12):775-8. doi: 10.1021/cb700254v.
Understanding the function of biomolecules is crucially dependent on observing the dynamics of their biosynthesis, distribution, and metabolism in their native environment at the cellular and organismal levels rather than their behavior in the isolated samples. Small bioorthogonal functional groups that cause minimal, if any, perturbations of the native structure and function of the target molecule under physiological conditions and react selectively with an appropriately derivatized probe could function as chemical handles that allow selective visualization of the target molecule in the complex biological milieu. Small and generally unreactive, organic azides are ideally suited for this task: they can be carried unnoticed through multiple biosynthetic steps only to be revealed, when desired, by action of a suitably derivatized visualization label.
了解生物分子的功能至关重要地依赖于在细胞和生物体水平的天然环境中观察其生物合成、分布和代谢的动态过程，而不是其在分离样本中的行为。小的生物正交官能团在生理条件下对目标分子的天然结构和功能造成的干扰极小（如果有的话），并且能与适当衍生化的探针选择性反应，可作为化学手柄，使目标分子在复杂的生物环境中得以选择性可视化。有机叠氮化物体积小且通常不具反应性，非常适合这项任务：它们可以在多个生物合成步骤中不被察觉地携带，仅在需要时通过适当衍生化的可视化标签的作用而被揭示。
