Tailored ruthenium sandwich complexes bearing photoresponsive arene ligands can efficiently promote azide-thioalkyne cycloaddition (RuAtAC) when irradiated with UV light. The reactions can be performed in a bioorthogonal manner in aqueous mixtures containing biological components. The strategy can also be applied for the selective modification of biopolymers, such as DNA or peptides. Importantly, this ruthenium-based technology and the standard copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) proved to be compatible and mutually orthogonal.
Keywords: biocompatible reactions; bioorthogonal reactions; click chemistry; ruthenium; thioalkynes.
© 2021 The Authors. Angewandte Chemie International Edition published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.