Design and Synthesis of Fluorescent Amino Acids: Novel Tools for Biological Imaging

博士项目旨在开发具有明确特性的新型荧光氨基酸，可作为分子和细胞生物学应用的成像探针。特别是，我们的目标是产生对分子结构如何影响量子产率和发射波长等性质的理解。几种新型n -杂环衍生氨基酸将通过一系列环加成反应从容易获得的烯酮衍生物中制备出来。每一类氨基酸的先导化合物都显示出强烈的荧光，高量子产率和有趣的溶剂化性质，将进一步研究作为生物成像探针。利用固相肽合成技术，这些将被纳入短细胞穿透肽（例如FluAA-Val-Pro-Thr-Leu-Lys）中，与各种细胞系一起培养，并使用共聚焦荧光显微镜进行分析。

The PhD project aims to develop novel fluorescent amino acids with clearly defined properties that can act as imaging probes for molecular and cellular biological applications. In particular, we aim to generate an understanding of how molecular structure affects properties such as quantum yield and emission wavelength. Several classes of novel N-heterocycle-derived amino acids will be prepared from easily accessible enone derivatives using a range of cycloaddition reactions. Lead compounds from each class of amino acid that show sharp fluorescence, high quantum yields and interesting solvatochromatic properties will be further investigated as probes for biological imaging. These will be incorporated into short cell-penetrating peptides (e.g. FluAA-Val-Pro-Thr-Leu-Lys) using solid phase peptide synthesis, incubated with various cell lines and analysed using confocal fluorescent microscopy.