Rapid Macrocycle Threading by a Fluorescent Dye-Polymer Conjugate in Water with Nanomolar Affinity

摘要

A macrocyclic tetralactam host is threaded by a highly fluorescent squaraine dye that is flanked by two polyethyleneglycol (PEG) chains with nanomolar dissociation constants in water. Furthermore, the rates of bimolecular association are very fast with kon ~10⁶–10⁷ M⁻¹s⁻¹. The association is effective under cell culture conditions and produces large changes in dye optical properties including turn-on near-infrared fluorescence that can be imaged using cell microscopy. Association constants in water are ~1000 times higher than in organic solvents and strongly enthalpically favored at 27 °C. The threading rate is hardly affected by the length of the PEG chains that flank the squaraine dye. For example, macrocyle threading by a dye conjugate with two appended PEG2000 chains is only three times slower than threading by a conjugate with triethyleneglycol chains that are twenty times shorter. The results are a promising advance towards synthetic mimics of streptavidin/biotin.