Phospha-Michael Addition as a New Click Reaction for Protein Functionalization

Abstract

A new type of click reaction between an alkyl phosphine and acrylamide was developed and applied for site-specific protein labeling in vitro and in live cells. Acrylamide is a small electrophilic olefin that readily undergoes phospha-Michael addition with an alkyl phosphine. Our kinetic study indicated a second-order rate constant of 0.07 m(-1) s(-1) for the reaction between tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine and acrylamide at pH 7.4. To demonstrate its application in protein functionalization, we used a dansyl-phosphine conjugate to successfully label proteins that were site-specifically installed with N(ɛ) -acryloyl-l-lysine and employed a biotin-phosphine conjugate to selectively probe human proteins that were metabolically labeled with N-acryloyl-galactosamine.

Keywords: acrylamide; bioorthogonal reaction; click chemistry; phospha-Michael addition; phosphine.