A tetrapeptide containing dehydrophenylalanine residue exhibits unusual enhanced fluorescence emission intensity for Hg2+ ions selectively. In vivo studies on HeLa cells revealed that this peptide could be used to study Hg2+ trafficking in mammalian cells. The results demonstrate that Hg2+ can interact with sulfurless peptide backbones, if the latter provides the requisite geometry, especially a folded type III/III overlapping beta turn conformation.
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