Red-shifted water-soluble BODIPY photocages for visualisation and controllable cellular delivery
Researchers led by Tomáš Slanina from IOCB Prague developed a water-soluble caging group based on a π-extended BODIPY scaffold able to release carboxylate-containing cargo upon red light illumination.
They performed mechanistic studies showing new insights into the principles of the photoreactivity of these cages and demonstrated a significant influence of the structure of a carboxylate cargo on the rate and efficiency of the uncaging process and its side reactions. Researchers used it for selective delivery, visualisation, and photorelease of a signaling lipid in cell plasma and internal membranes. With this approach, they successfully induced Ca2+ release in cells expressing the GPR40 receptor.
The combination of red-shifted absorption, orthogonality of uncaging, and localisation specificity make these cages a suitable tool for lipid signaling studies.
Read the paper: Poryvai, A.; Galkin, M.; Shvadchak, V.; Slanina, T. Red-Shifted Water-Soluble BODIPY Photocages for Visualisation and Controllable Cellular Delivery of Signaling Lipids. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, e202205855. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202205855
