Interrogating biological systems using visible-light-powered catalysis

Selective Mitochondrial Protein Labeling Enabled by Biocompatible Photocatalytic Reactions inside Live Cells

“…Light provides high temporal-spatial precision while it disturbs the biological system relatively subtly, and the photoinducible chemical tools are valuable for cellular biomolecule studies. − Compared to the traditional photochemical methods, the recently emerged photocatalytic reactions provide additional advantages: The reactive intermediates are generated in the proximity of the excited-state photocatalysts with light dependence. − Using the antibody-conjugated iridium complex as the localized photocatalyst and the diazirine probe, the photocatalytic carbene insertion achieved the cell-membrane proteins labeling under blue light irradiation . Despite the impressive success in mapping the protein–protein interactions in the cell-membrane microenvironments, this antibody conjugation strategy was not suitable for the intracellular applications as the membrane impermeability of the iridium photocatalysts and its potential heavy-metal cytotoxicity. , …”

Selective C(sp3)-C(sp3) Cleavage/Alkynylation of Cycloalkylamides Enables Aminoalkyne Synthesis with Hypervalent Iodine Reagents

“…The effects of the methoxyl substituents on the BI’-OAc catalytic reactivity is surprising and will be further investigated in our laboratory. While the details of the exact noncovalent activation of the hypervalent iodine­(III) reagents on cycloalkylamides remains unknown, this method provides an attractive entry to amidyl radical generations under mild oxidative conditions without the use of bases and will be useful for the chemoselective complex molecule modifications and biocompatible applications …”

A biohybrid strategy for enabling photoredox catalysis with low-energy light

“…The high-energy excitation can also cause cellular damage and so has limited the biological applications of this powerful technology. [18][19][20][21] Nature overcomes the poor light-harvesting ability of the charge transfer and similar reactive states with dedicated machinery to capture sunlight for photosynthesis. [22][23][24][25][26][27] Light-harvesting proteins absorb over large spectral bandwidths…”