Bioconjugation: How to pick a single amine?
March 30th, 2015 by Floris P J T Rutjes
Nature Chemical Biology 11, 306 (2015). doi:10.1038/nchembio.1791
Author: Floris P J T Rutjes
Single-step site-specific labeling of native proteins is one of the holy grails in the chemical biology field. 2-Pyridinecarboxyaldehyde derivatives are shown to react selectively at the N terminus of proteins to form stable conjugates, irrespective of the nature of the N-terminal amino acid, enabling the straightforward introduction of useful functional groups into a wide array of proteins.