Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George St. Toronto, ON M5S 3H6, Canada.
Chem Soc Rev. 2011 Aug;40(8):4422-37. doi: 10.1039/c1cs15023e. Epub 2011 Apr 12.
The photoisomerization of azobenzene has been known for almost 75 years but only recently has this process been widely applied to biological systems. The central challenge of how to productively couple the isomerization process to a large functional change in a biomolecule has been met in a number of instances and it appears that effective photocontrol of a large variety of biomolecules may be possible. This critical review summarizes key properties of azobenzene that enable its use as a photoswitch in biological systems and describes strategies for using azobenzene photoswitches to drive functional changes in peptides, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and carbohydrates (192 references).
偶氮苯的光致异构化现象已经为人所知将近 75 年，但直到最近，这一过程才被广泛应用于生物系统。在许多情况下，如何有效地将异构化过程与生物分子的大功能变化相耦合这一核心挑战已经得到了解决，而且似乎可以有效地对各种生物分子进行光控。这篇综述总结了偶氮苯作为生物系统中的光开关的关键特性，并描述了使用偶氮苯光开关来驱动肽、蛋白质、核酸、脂质和碳水化合物的功能变化的策略（192 篇参考文献）。
