Disassembly-driven Turn-on Sensing of Enzyme Activity by Substrate-based Fluorescent Nanoprobe

Abstract

Herein, we report a novel signal-amplifiable self-assembling fluorescent nanoprobe for turn-on detection of specific enzyme activity. This probe employed a substrate of matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) together with a self-assembling unit, and showed a detection limit of less than 830 pM, which is 84-fold lower than that of our previous ligand-tethered fluorescent nanoprobes. Using this new probe, we succeeded in monitoring the specific activity of secreted MMP even in the conditioned media of tumor cells.Real-time imaging of specific enzyme activities offers valuable information in understanding the biological processes and in development of medicine for various types of diseases.

Supramolecular Assemblies Responsive to Biomolecules toward Biological Applications

“…Several self‐assembling nano‐aggregates are applicable to turn‐on type imaging of enzymatic activity. Hamachi and co‐workers reported that amphiphilic molecules 22 , 23 , and 24 having a 19 F‐modified peptide sequence cleavable by matrix metalloproteinase‐2 (MMP2) assembled to form nanoparticles (Figure c) . In the nanoparticles, the 19 F NMR signal is not detected due to the increase in their apparent molecular weight.…”