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.

Les sucres ont un rôle dans de nombreux phénomènes biologiques dont, notamment, la reconnaissance cellulaire. Par exemple, les cellules cancéreuses expriment des antigènes composés de sucres qui leurs sont propres, modifiant ainsi leur identité glycosidique par rapport à celle d’une cellule saine. Ces sucres sont reconnus spécifiquement pas des protéines que l’on nomme des lectines. Ces interactions sont faibles et non-covalentes donc difficiles à capturer. L’objectif de ce projet est de concevoir un outil permettant de capturer ces interactions ce qui en permettra une meilleure compréhension. Les stratégies déjà utilisées consistent en l’utilisation de photoréticulants. Ces molécules permettent de former un lien covalent entrer la protéine d’étude et son substrat. Bien que de nombreuses améliorations ont été effectuées depuis la création de ces outils, il reste difficile de pouvoir étudier ces interactions. Pour pallier à cela, nous avons ajouté une dimension visuelle a notre outil en incorporant un motif coumarine à notre photoréticulant qui, une fois soumise à une irradiation UV, permet de créer une liaison covalente entre notre sonde et notre protéine d’intérêt et de laisser en même temps, une trace fluorescente sur ladite protéine. Nous avons ensuite utilisé notre coumarine en présence d’une fucolectine, la BambL, en conditions dénaturantes pour laisser une trace fluorescente sur celle-ci. Notre sonde a également été utilisé pour cibler des protéines d’intérêts dans des lysats cellulaires. / Carbohydrates are involved in many biological phenomena, such as cellular recognition. As an example, cancer cells expressed there on sugared antigens and it’s modifiying their glycosidic identity compare to an healthy cell. These sugars can be recognized by proteins which are also called lectins. Interactions between the biomolecules are weak and difficult to capture. The aim of the project is to design a tool which let us able to capture and have a better understanding of theses interactions. Previous studies have shown the usefulness of the photocrosslinkers. These molecules can create a covalent bond between the protein of interest and its substrat. Although all the improvements since the creation of these tools, it is still difficult to underline sugar-protein interactions. To overcome the problem, visual parameters were incorporated to our probe with a coumarin scaffold whom, after UV irradiations, can generate a nitrene and formed a covalent bond between our probe and our targeting probe letting a fluorescent tag on the protein. The probe has been tested in presence of a fucolectine; the BambL, in denaturing conditions to check the fluorescent tag. Our probe was also tested in cell lysats conditions.