Department of Chemistry, BITS-Pilani Hyderabad Campus, Shameerpet, Hyderabad 500078 Telangana, India.
ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2023 Apr 17;6(4):1495-1503. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.2c01046. Epub 2023 Mar 20.
An easily synthesizable pyrene-based amphiphilic probe () has been developed, which exhibited no responses with metal ions in the pure aqueous medium despite possessing a metal ion-chelating bispicolyl unit. We believe that spontaneous aggregation of in aqueous medium makes the ion binding unit not accessible to the metal ions. However, the sensitivity and selectivity of toward Zn ions drastically improve in the presence of serum albumin protein, HSA. The differences in the microenvironment inside the protein cavity, in terms of local polarity, and conformational rigidity might be attributing factors for that. The mechanistic investigations also suggest that there might be the involvement of polar amino acid residues that take part in coordination with Zn ions. shows no detectable spectroscopic changes with Zn ions in aqueous medium in the absence of HSA. However, it can effectively recognize Zn ions in the protein-bound form. Moreover, the photophysical behavior of and its zinc complex have been investigated with DFT and docking studies. Noteworthy, such an unusual sensing aspect of Zn exclusively in the protein-bound state and particularly in aqueous medium is truly rare and innovative.
我们开发了一种易于合成的基于芘的两亲探针 ()，尽管它具有金属离子螯合双皮考啉单元，但在纯水性介质中与金属离子没有任何响应。我们认为， 在水溶液中的自发聚集使得离子结合单元无法与金属离子接触。然而，在血清白蛋白 (HSA) 存在的情况下， 对 Zn 离子的灵敏度和选择性大大提高。蛋白质腔体内的微环境在局部极性和构象刚性方面的差异可能是导致这种情况的因素。机理研究还表明，可能涉及参与与 Zn 离子配位的极性氨基酸残基。 在没有 HSA 的情况下， 在水性介质中与 Zn 离子没有可检测到的光谱变化。然而，它可以有效地识别蛋白质结合形式的 Zn 离子。此外，还通过 DFT 和对接研究研究了 和其锌配合物的光物理行为。值得注意的是，这种在蛋白质结合状态下特别是在水性介质中对 Zn 离子的独特感应特性确实罕见且具有创新性。
