Work

Cell‐Compatible Nanoprobes for Imaging Intracellular Phosphatase Activities

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Phosphatases play an important role in cell biology, but only a few probes are suitable for selectively imaging phosphatase activity in live cells, because the current probes require cell fixation or exhibit considerable cytotoxicity. Herein, we show that conjugating a d-peptide to a quinazolinone derivative generates cell-compatible, biostable probes for imaging the phosphatase activity inside live cells. Moreover, our results show that inhibiting ectophosphatases is a critical factor for imaging intracellular phosphatases. As the first example of using selective inhibitors to ensure intracellular function of molecular probes, this work illustrates a facile approach to design molecular probes for profiling the activities of enzymes in a spatial, selective manner in a complicated environment.

Source: ChemBioChem

DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201800495

Authors: Jiaqing Wang, Jie Zhou, Hongjian He, Difei Wu, Xuewen Du, Bing Xu

Institution: Brandeis University

Language: English

Topic: Molecular Sensors and Ion Detection

Subfield: Spectroscopy

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Awards: Enzyme-instructed nanoscale assemblies for killing multidrug resistant bacteria, Subcellular enzyme-instructed self-assembly for molecular anticancer nanomedicines