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Biological Chemistry

Spring-Loaded Nanoparticles Sense Proteases

A nanoparticle squeezed by peptides could help detect active enzymes associated with disease?

by Journal News and Community
April 30, 2012 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 90, Issue 18

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Credit: J. Am. Chem. Soc.
A peptide (gold) attached to a nanoparticle (blue circle) puts strain on the particle’s polymers, keeping it in a dark “off” state (left). When a protease cleaves the peptide, the polymer strain is released, thereby allowing the nanoparticle’s polymers to glow red (right).
A scheme showing the off and on states of a protease sensor. When the sensor is activated, a peptide is cleaved, and the nanoparticle in the sensor glows red.
Credit: J. Am. Chem. Soc.
A peptide (gold) attached to a nanoparticle (blue circle) puts strain on the particle’s polymers, keeping it in a dark “off” state (left). When a protease cleaves the peptide, the polymer strain is released, thereby allowing the nanoparticle’s polymers to glow red (right).

A new polymer nanoparticle acts like a protease mousetrap, glowing bright red only when a specific enzyme is present (J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ja301259v). The developers of the sensor hope the particle will help doctors detect proteases that turn on in the early stages of cancer. Timothy M. Swager and Carlos Cordovilla of Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed their five-block polymer around pentiptycene, which emits red light when ultraviolet light excites it. Swager predicted that if several of the polymers packed tightly in a nanoparticle, the “chains would mingle together,” which would prevent the polymers from emitting light. If given a bit more room, he says, they should start emitting again. The chemists cross-linked the polymer chains with a peptide that had an amino-acid sequence that the protease trypsin would cleave. This cross-linking forced the polymer chains to crowd together closely enough to shut off their fluorescence. When they mixed the dark nanoparticles with trypsin, the enzyme snipped the peptides, allowing the particles to expand. The particles then glowed 15 times as brightly as they did without the protease.

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