We have developed the second generation TQ-Ligation

We have recently developed the second generation TQ-ligation, and demonstrated it as a powerful method to facilitate chemical biology studies. Second Generation TQ-Ligation for Cell Organelle Imaging Xiaoyun Zhang, Ting Dong, Qiang Li, Xiaohui Liu, Lin Li, She Chen, and Xiaoguang Lei* ACS Chem. Biol. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.5b00193 ABSTRACT: Bioorthogonal ligations play a crucial role […]

We have recently developed the second generation TQ-ligation, and demonstrated it as a powerful method to facilitate chemical biology studies.

Second Generation TQ-Ligation for Cell Organelle Imaging

Xiaoyun Zhang, Ting Dong, Qiang Li, Xiaohui Liu, Lin Li, She Chen, and Xiaoguang Lei*

ACS Chem. Biol. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.5b00193

ABSTRACT: Bioorthogonal ligations play a crucial role in labeling diverse types of biomolecules in living systems. Herein, we describe a novel class of ortho-quinolinone quinone methide (oQQM) precursors that show faster kinetic rate in the “click cycloaddition” with thio-vinyl ether (TV) than the first generation TQ-ligation in both chemical and biological settings. We further demonstrate that the second generation TQ-ligation is also orthogonal to the widely used strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC) both in vitro and in vivo, revealing that these two types of bioorthogonal ligations could be used as an ideal reaction pair for the simultaneous tracking of multiple elements within a single system. Remarkably, the second generation TQ-ligation and SPAAC are effective for selective and simultaneous imaging of two different cell organelles in live cells.