Computational understanding and experimental characterization of twice-as-smart quadruplex ligands as chemical sensors of bacterial nucleotide second messengers.
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).
Department of Chemistry and Center for Drug Discovery, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Jie
J
Zhou
Graduate Program in Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Benjamin T
BT
Roembke
Department of Theoretical Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|MTA-SZTE Supramolecular and Nanostructured Materials Research Group, Szeged, Hungary.
Gabor
G
Paragi
Institut de Chimie Moléculaire, ICMUB CNRS UMR6302, UBFC Dijon, France.
Aurélien
A
Laguerre
Department of Chemistry and Center for Drug Discovery, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Herman O
HO
Sintim
Department of Theoretical Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Célia
C
Fonseca Guerra
Institut de Chimie Moléculaire, ICMUB CNRS UMR6302, UBFC Dijon, France.
David
D
Monchaud
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