Fiche publication
Date publication
septembre 2016
Journal
Scientific reports
Auteurs
Membres identifiés du Cancéropôle Est :
Dr MONCHAUD David
Tous les auteurs :
Zhou J, Roembke BT, Paragi G, Laguerre A, Sintim HO, Fonseca Guerra C, Monchaud D
Lien Pubmed
Résumé
A twice-as-smart ligand is a small molecule that experiences a structural switch upon interaction with its target (i.e., smart ligand) that concomitantly triggers its fluorescence (i.e., smart probe). Prototypes of twice-as-smart ligands were recently developed to track and label G-quadruplexes: these higher-order nucleic acid structures originate in the assembly of four guanine(G)-rich DNA or RNA strands, whose stability is imparted by the formation and the self-assembly of G-quartets. The first prototypes of twice-as-smart quadruplex ligands were designed to exploit the self-association of quartets, being themselves synthetic G-quartets. While their quadruplex recognition capability has been thoroughly documented, some doubts remain about the precise photophysical mechanism that underlies their peculiar spectroscopic properties. Here, we uncovered this mechanism via complete theoretical calculations. Collected information was then used to develop a novel application of twice-as-smart ligands, as efficient chemical sensors of bacterial signaling pathways via the fluorescent detection of naturally occurring extracellular quadruplexes formed by cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP).
Référence
Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 26;6:33888
