title: Design and construction of supramolecular nanobeacons for enzyme detection.
abstract: Molecular beacons are typically water-soluble molecules that can convert specific chemical reactions or binding events into measurable optical signals, providing a noninvasive means to help understand cellular and subcellular activities at the molecular level. However, the soluble form of the current molecular beacon design often leads to their poor stability and facile degradation by nonspecific enzymes, and as a result, this undesired activation could give rise to false signals and thus poses a limitation for accurate detection of enzymatic activities. Here we report a proof-of-concept design and synthesis of a new type of supramolecular nanobeacon that is resistant to nonspecific enzymatic degradation in the self-assembled state but can be effectively cleaved by the target enzyme in the monomeric form. Our results show that the nanobeacon with a GFLG peptide linker could serve as an indicator for the presence of a lysosomal enzyme, cathepsin B.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Institute for NanoBioTechnology, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Lye Lin
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Lock
authors.forename: Andrew G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Cheetham
authors.forename: Pengcheng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Honggang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cui
mesh_terms: D002401:Cathepsin B / Q000378:metabolism*; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D061986:MCF-7 Cells; D057054:Molecular Imaging; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D015335:Molecular Probes; D002401:Cathepsin B