Boronic acids play an important role in the design and synthesis of chemosensors for carbohydrates due to their ability to reversibly bind with diol-containing compounds. Along this line, the availability of boronic acids that change fluorescence upon sugar binding is critical to a successful sensor design effort. Here, two boronic acids that show strong fluorescent intensity changes upon sugar binding are reported: isoquinoline-7-boronic acid (7-IQBA) and phenoxathiin-4-boronic acid (4-POBA).

With the rapidly increasing interest in the field of glycomics, which is the comprehensive study of the roles carbohydrates play in a living system, urgent need for developing quick and highly selective carbohydrate sensors is growing. The boronic acid group, with its electron-deficient structure (6 valence electrons with an open shell), acts as a Lewis acid with high intrinsic affinity towards Lewis bases such as fluoride, cyanide and hydroxyl groups. Specifically, formation of a 5- or 6- membered ring between the boronic acid moiety and a1,2- or 1,3-diol in aqueous solution has been fully explored as a strategy of carbohydrate sensor design. Along this line, those binders were termed as ¡°boronolectins¡± because of their similar functions as lectins. One challenge in developing boronic acid-based carbohydrate sensors is to enhance the discriminating ability among various carbohydrate analytes with diverse building blocks and complex linkage patterns. One approach is using polypeptide or oligonucleotide as a backbone or scaffold with functionalized boronic acid moiety to create a molecular library, and then selecting binders with favorable properties. The work presented here includes three general research parts: synthesis of a naphthalimide-based boronic acid-conjugated thymidine triphosphate (NB-TTP), fluorescence property studies of NB-TTP incorporated DNA (NB-DNA), and cellular imaging studies using NB-TTP: 1) 4-Amino-1,4-naphthalimide (Nap) was chosen as the fluorophore because of its relatively long excitation and emission wavelengths, and stability. The synthesis of naphthalimide-based boronic acid (NB) followed similar route as previously published work. Tethering of boronic acid moiety and TTP was accomplished through Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cyclization (CuAAC), known as click chemistry. The synthesized NB-TTP showed fluorescence enhancements at long wavelength (¦Ëem: 540 nm) upon sugar addition. 2) NB-TTP was incorporated into DNA through Klenow fragment-catalyzed primer extension reactions. Different DNA sequences were designed with varying number and spacing for NB-TTP incorporation. The preliminary study provided certain insight into several factors that affect the fluorescent properties of different NB -DNA. 3) NB-TTP was added into Hela cell culture medium to study its cell imaging properties. With the observation under fluorescent microscope, it was demonstrated that NB-TTP showed good cell membrane permeability and significant accumulation in cell nucleus.

Conducting polymers have been widely explored for many different purposes including sensing. In thisthesis the conducive properties of pyrrole and the carbohydrate binding properties of boronic acid iscombined to make a reagent-free detector for carbohydrates. The polymer is manufactured in form ofparticles in the μm scale to create a porous film which has a high surface to volume ratio.The material was characterised and the binding properties were evaluated for galactose and glucose.Proof of binding was found via both electrochemical methods and QCM-D. A correlation between R2 value and concentration of substrate was found which enables measurement of concentration of carbohydratesin unknown samples.

Phosphorylated molecules play vastly important roles in the environment and biological systems. The main focus of this work sought to expand the current collection of synthetic phosphate receptors to include the binding of oligosaccharide phosphates. To this end, the synthesis of a boronic acid - appended porphyrin whose selectivity could be tuned through nucleic acid selection was pursued through a number of synthetic routes. Though difficulties were encountered with synthetic reactivities and product solubility, these efforts culminated in the development of a bis-boronic acid-substituted porphyrin soluble in DMSO/water mixtures that displays fluorescence quenching upon the addition of specific saccharide derivatives. In efforts to ease the synthetic burden, the creation of a DNA-based self-assembled receptor system was also investigated. Further, this work included the synthesis of phosphorylated derivatives of gemcitabine, a nucleoside chemotherapeutic drug, with the goal of developing targeted delivery systems for the improved treatment of cancer. Progress in each of these areas is discussed. / text

Labeling proteins with chemical tools is important for examining natural systems, discovering therapeutic agents and developing protein constructs. These methods offer simple but reliable chemistry to the study of peptides and proteins and thus have gained popularity among chemists and biologists. Despite the fact that the number of successful examples has been largely increased over the past decade, there is still an ongoing need for new reagents with better accessibility and reactivity. Diazonium ions are known to selectively react with tyrosine residues for more than a century. But the harsh condition required for diazotization makes it difficult to use this strategy in biological applications. To address this, bench-stable triazabutadienes are made to release diazonium ions upon mild acidification or photoirradiation. Based on our previous study, imidazole N-alkyl substituted triazabutadienes were synthesized and tested for diazonium ion-releasing rates. Surprisingly, the imidazole N-tert-butyl substituted triazabutadiene showed the fastest rate in neutral and basic aqueous solutions. A subsequent NMR study revealed that this rapid release of diazonium ions might be ascribed to the lack of intramolecular π-interactions. In addition, triazabutadienes can be rendered more basic upon photo-isomerization. A water-soluble triazabutadiene was shown to adjust the pH of aqueous solutions. These findings open up new opportunities in protein labeling with unprecedented ease. Moreover, a boronic acid-based photocrosslinker was synthesized to detect protein-protein interactions of glycoproteins. By incorporating benzophenone with a boronic acid and a terminal alkyne, this photocrosslinker is designed to capture the glycoprotein-substrate complex using the combination of photochemistry and bioorthogonal reactions. In conclusion, this dissertation demonstrates progress in developing new probes for protein labeling and protein-protein interactions. These newly developed strategies offer convenient alternatives to those wishing to explore protein activities.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The extracellular matrix (ECM) governs many cellular processes through biochemical and mechanical cues. Particularly, the effect ECM mechanical properties on cells fate has been well established over the years. Many hydrogel systems have been used to mimic the dynamic stiffening processes occurring in ECM. However, changes in ECM stiffness does not fully recapitulate the mechanics of native ECM, as viscoelasticity is also a major factor contributing to ECM dynamic property. This thesis describes the design and characterization of an enzyme-crosslinked hydrogel system that is not only capable of being stiffened on demand, but also can be tuned to obtain viscoelasticity. The first objective of this thesis was to utilize horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to crosslink thiol-norbornene hydrogel and use mushroom tyrosinase (MT) to create secondary DOPA-dimer crosslinks that stiffened the hydrogel. The cytocompatibility of HRP-mediated thiol-norbornene gelation and the effect of stiffening on cell fate was evaluated. The second objective of this thesis represented the first step towards developing a hydrogel system whose viscoelasticity could be dynamically tuned. Thiol-norbornene hydrogel was designed to yield dynamically adaptable boronic ester bonds via partial enzymatic reaction. Thiol-norborne hydrogel was made to contain hydroxyl phenol as well as boronic acid residues within its network. MT, in this case was used to oxidize the hydroxy phenol moieties into DOPA, which then complexed with boronic acid, created dynamic bonds, introducing viscoelasticity to an initial elastic hydrogel.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Jianmin Gao / Besides their broad applications in organic chemistry, boronic acids are also increasingly seen in a variety of biological applications. For instance, they have been used in therapeutic drugs for chemotherapy or probes for the detection of saccharides. One unique feature of boronic acids is that they are capable of forming reversible complexes with sugars or even amino acids. Importantly, they are known to have low inherent toxicity to human. In this work, we have focused on two important reactions involving boronic acids: boronate ester formation, in which boronic acids react with diols and iminoboronate formation in which boronic acids form dative bonds with neighboring amino groups. We have demonstrated the potential of these reactions in bacteria targeting or protein modification. We envisioned that boronic acids could be used as a great warhead to be included in the development of novel antibiotics to counter antibiotic resistance of bacteria, which has emerged to be a serious clinical problem. Different from conventional antibiotics, we decided to utilize reversible covalent chemistries in the design of bacterium binding probes. Inspired by the diol-rich environment on bacterial surface, the first strategy took advantage of the reaction between boronic acid and diols to form boronate esters. We have rationally designed a linear peptide containing five copies of the ‘Wulff-type’ boronic acids or bicyclic amphiphilic peptides with two copies of boronic acids. We examined their capability of binding to E. coli cells or their bactericidal activity against S. aureus. Furthermore, we established a synthetic peptide library (OBTC) incorporating the 2-acetylphenyl boronic acid (2-APBA) warhead to form iminoboronate with the target-lipid II, a precursor for the biosynthesis of peptidoglycan. Although this library failed to generate any potent peptide hits, it provided useful information regarding the development of a synthetic library as well as the screening process. As an extension of the iminoboronate chemistry, thiazolidinoboronate (TzB) attracted our attention for its unique reaction mechanism, superior kinetics and excellent selectivity towards N-terminal cysteine residues. In this work, we have proposed an additional acyl transfer following TzB formation to turn this reaction into an irreversible conjugation. The new reaction inherits the fast kinetics and outstanding selectivity from the TzB chemistry. Excitingly, the product of TzB mediated acyl transfer survived complex conditions such as SDS-PAGE and LC/MS. This reaction was also applied to modify two recombinant proteins with N-terminal cysteine residues or to create a C5C phage library with two distinct modifications. We have further extended the substrate from cysteine to diaminopropionic acid (Dap), serine and tris base. We were delighted to observe imidazolidino boronate (IzB) formation and oxazolidino boronate (OzB) formation, which led to the design of cysteineresponsive probes or peptides that can be spontaneously cyclized in neutral aqueous conditions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

No description available.

<p>The interaction of boronic acid with diols is reversible and pH-dependent. Boronate groups are able to form complex with 1,2- diol or 1,3-diols at pH values above 9. Therefore, the unique property of boronic esters was employed to exploit controllable self-assembly by three independent mechanisms, each of which is independent of the other two. The three interaction mechanisms are 1) electrostatic attraction between positive polymers and negative surfaces. 2) Polyethylene glycol (PEG)—phenolic polymer complex formation, which is one type of hydrogen bonding. 3) Phenylboronate (PBA) binding to polyols.</p> <p>To exploit these interactions, families of water-soluble and bifunctional copolymers containing pairs of non-interacting groups were prepared and characterized. Characterization includes structure, molecular weight, composition, etc. These bifunctional polymers can specifically interact with two other types of polymers/surfaces. Therefore, it provides a possibility to prepare complex assemblies by using multiple polymer/polymer interactions in one step.</p> <p>The utility of multiple, independent interactions was demonstrated by formation of self-assembled multilayer thin films on both silicon wafers and polystyrene latex particles. Moreover, the formation of well-defined nanoparticle aggregates with three different sizes of polystyrene latex particles was studied to extend the application of controllable self-assembly by multiple interactions. The assembly structures of multilayers and latex aggregates were controllable by adjusting the pH and addition of competitive small molecules.</p> <p>In addition to the study of multilayer self-assembly, a new approach for controllable deposition of latex nanoparticles on surfaces was also exploited. Regenerated cellulose films were chemically modified to fabricate the cellulose films bearing surface phenylboronic acid groups (cellulose-PBA). The poly(glycerol monomethacrylate)- stabilized polystyrene (PGMA-PS) latex particles were used to have reversible, pH-dependent adsorption onto the cellulose-PBA by the interaction of boronic acids and diols. Specific adsorption of PGMA-PS onto cellulose-PBA was observed at pH 10.5, whereas the latex particles were removed at pH 4.</p> / Doctor of Engineering (DEng)