Organic Chemistry, Short talk
OC-014

Fluorescent Probes to Image Physical Forces in Living Cells

K. Strakova1,4, J. López-Andarias1,4, G. Licari2, A. Colom3,4, N. Jiménez-Rojo3,4, E. Tajkhorshid2, A. Roux3,4, H. Riezman3,4, N. Sakai1, S. Matile1,4*
1Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Geneva, Switzerland, 2Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, 3Biochemistry Department, University of Geneva, Switzerland, 4National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Chemical Biology

Aiming to provide better understanding of forces ruling in biological membranes, mechanosensitive “flipper” probes have been developed. These fluorescent push-pull dimers respond to varying forces in membranes by a combined effect of ground state planarization and polarization, thus giving a direct fluorescent readout of changes in tension and lipid order of the surrounding membrane [1,2].

In past few years, our attention has been focused mainly on a) improving the spectroscopic and mechanical properties of the dye and b) attaching targeting groups to specifically reach desired cellular sites. By tailoring our flippers almost atom by atom, we have gained insight on the relationship between twist/push-pull strength and mechanosensitivity [3,4]. More importantly for biology, by attaching classical targeting motifs [5], or exploiting protein tag strategies [6], we have been able to specifically stain membranes of various cellular organelles and report successfully on their lipid order and membrane tension changes induced by different means.

[1] K. Strakova, L. Assies, A. Goujon, F. Piazzolla, H. Humeniuk, S. Matile, Chem. Rev. 2019, 119, 10977–11005.
[2] G. Licari, K. Strakova, S. Matile, E. Tajkhorshid, Chem. Sci. 2020, in press.
[3] K. Strakova, A. Poblador-Bahamonde, N. Sakai, S. Matile, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 14935–14942.
[4] M. Macchione, N. Chuard, N. Sakai, S. Matile, ChemPlusChem, 2017, 82, 1062–1066.
[5] A. Goujon, A. Colom, K. Strakova, V. Mercier, D. Mahecic, S. Manley, N. Sakai, A. Roux, S. Matile, Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 3380–3384.
[6] K. Strakova, J. López-Andarias, N. Jiménez-Rojo, J. Chambers, S. J. Marciniak, H. Riezman, N. Sakai, S. Matile, submitted.