The concept of chelation-assisted copper catalysis was employed for the development of new azides that display unprecedented reactivity in the copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne [3+2] cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction. Azides that bear strong copper-chelating moieties were synthesized; these functional groups allow the formation of azide copper complexes that react almost instantaneously with alkynes under diluted conditions. Efficient ligation occurred at low concentration and in complex media with only one equivalent of copper, which improves the biocompatibility of the CuAAC reaction. Furthermore, such a click reaction allowed the localization of a bioactive compound inside living cells by fluorescence measurements.
We report the discovery of a new bioorthogonal click-and-release reaction involving iminosydnones and strained alkynes. This transformation leads to two products resulting from the ligation and fragmentation of iminosydnones under physiological conditions. Optimized iminosydnones were successfully used to design innovative cleavable linkers for protein modification, thus opening up new areas in the fields of drug release and target-fishing applications. This click-and-release technology offers the possibility of exchanging tags on proteins for functionalized cyclooctynes under mild and bioorthogonal conditions.
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