The development of small protein tags that exhibit bioorthogonality, bond stability, and reversibility, as well as biocompatibility, holds great promise for applications in cellular environments enabling controlled drug delivery or for the construction of dynamic protein complexes in biological environments. Herein, we report the first application of dynamic covalent chemistry both for purification and for reversible assembly of protein conjugates using interactions of boronic acid with diols and salicylhydroxamates. Incorporation of the boronic acid (BA) tag was performed in a site-selective fashion by applying disulfide rebridging strategy. As an example, a model protein enzyme (lysozyme) was modified with the BA tag and purified using carbohydrate-based column chromatography. Subsequent dynamic covalent "click-like" bioconjugation with a salicylhydroxamate modified fluorescent dye (BODIPY FL) was accomplished while retaining its original enzymatic activity.

The interaction of boronic acids with various bifunctional reagents offers great potential for the preparation of responsive supramolecular architectures. Boronic acids react with 1,2-diols yielding cyclic boronate esters that are stable at pH>7.4 but can be hydrolyzed at pH<5.0. The phenylboronic acid (PBA)-salicylhydroxamic acid (SHA) system offers ultra-fast reaction kinetics and high binding affinities. This Focus Review summarizes the current advances in exploiting the bioorthogonal interaction of boronic acids to build pH-responsive supramolecular architectures in water.

The use of water as a nucleophile for Michael additions is still a challenge in organic chemistry. In this report we describe the use of amino acids as catalysts for the Michael addition of water to α,β‐unsaturated ketones. All 20 proteinogenic amino acids were screened and L‐lysine was identified as the best candidate. To obtain a better insight and to determine the minimum requirements of the catalyst, several structurally related compounds were tested. The reaction was characterized in terms of conditions and equilibrium.

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