Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Synthetic and Functional Biomolecules Center, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
J Am Chem Soc. 2013 Feb 27;135(8):3144-9. doi: 10.1021/ja3106779. Epub 2013 Feb 11.
Copper represents one of the most important biological metal ions due to its role as a catalytic cofactor in a multitude of proteins. However, an excess of copper is highly toxic. Thus, copper is heavily regulated, and copper homeostasis is controlled by many metalloregulatory proteins in various organisms. Here we report a genetically encoded copper(I) probe capable of monitoring copper fluctuations inside living cells. We insert the copper regulatory protein Ace1 into a yellow fluorescent protein, which selectively binds copper(I) and generates improved copper(I) probes.
铜是最重要的生物金属离子之一，因为它在多种蛋白质中作为催化辅因子发挥作用。然而，过量的铜是剧毒的。因此，铜受到严格的调节，铜的动态平衡由各种生物体中的许多金属调节蛋白控制。在这里，我们报告了一种遗传编码的铜（I）探针，能够监测活细胞内的铜波动。我们将铜调节蛋白 Ace1 插入到黄色荧光蛋白中，该蛋白选择性地结合铜（I）并生成改进的铜（I）探针。
