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believe that this study may offer a novel means to engineer cel- incubated in the medium C containing AM-AT3 8 (4 μM) with 0.5% DMSO for 24
h. Expression of sec-nluc and SEAP was quantified in the supernatant as described
in the following section. Then, cells were detached using 0.05% trypsin-EDTA. The
cell populations were analyzed using a Becton Dickinson LSRII Fortessa Flow
lular function via highly modular cell-penetrating ArMs.
Methods
Cytometer (Becton Dickinson) (conditions: filter set for monitoring red fluores-
cence; 561-nm laser, mirror: 570 LP, Filter: 586/15 BP). Data were analyzed by
FlowJo. Populations of living cells (23963 to 25336 events) were extracted from
30,000 events based on SSC and FSC.
Synthesis of chemical compounds. Details are collected in the Supplementary
Information (Supplementary Figures 8–17 and Supplementary Methods)
Stock solutions of Sav, 1, 2, ArM 2x ⊂ Sav, and ArM 2x5y ⊂ Sav. Sav-stock
solutions (stock A) were prepared in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (pH 7.5) or
water to yield 800 μM free biotin-binding site (referred to as FBBS). A stock
solution (stock B) of the ruthenium complex 1 (2 mM) was prepared in dimethyl
sulfoxide (DMSO). A stock solution (stock C) of the ruthenium complex 2 (5 mM)
was prepared by mixing [CpRu(NCCH3)3](PF6) 3 (10 mM in DMF) and the bio-
tinylated ligand 4 (Supplementary Figure 9) (10 mM in DMF) in a 1:1 ratio. These
stock solutions were freshly prepared for each experiment. The ArM 2x ⊂ Sav was
prepared using the conditions listed in Supplementary Tables 1–3, respectively.
Stock C was incubated with water for 10 min prior to the addition of stock A. The
ArM 2x5y ⊂ Sav was prepared using the conditions collected in Supplementary
Tables 4–9. After mixing the ArM 2x ⊂ Sav and water, CPD 5 was added and
incubated for 2 h.
Activity assays of SEAP and sec-nluc. SEAP: The supernatant was transferred
into a 96-well plate (100 μL/well) and incubated at 65 °C for 30 min to heat-
inactivate endogenous alkaline phosphatases. After cooling, 80 μL of the treated
supernatant was mixed with 100 μL of 2× SEAP buffer (20 mM homoarginine, 1
mM MgCl2, 21% (v/v) diethanolamine, pH 9.8) and 20 μL of 720 μM of p-nitro-
phenylphosphate. Immediately thereafter, the absorbance was measured at 405 nm
at 37 °C using the EnVision 2104 Multilabel Reader. The measurement was per-
formed over 61 repeats of 30 s/repeat and the plate was shaken for 5 s at 900 rpm at
the beginning. From the time-course increase of the absorbance at 405 nm, derived
from the enzymatic activity of SEAP, the activity of SEAP (in U/L) was determined.
To avoid saturation effects, the linear part of the time-course plots was used for the
determination of the slope. The correlation between the slope and the corre-
sponding activity was determined using a standard.
Sec-nluc: The supernatant was transferred into a black 384-well plate (7.5 µL/
well), and the same amount of nanoglo assay solution (Promega). After 5 min
incubation, the luminescence was measured with Tecan Infinite M1000 Pro.
Screening Sav for the uncaging of AT3 6. Prior to Sav mutant screening,
potassium isocyanoacetate was tested as an irreversible inhibitor for the catalytic
activity of the ruthenium complexes 1, 2 and ArM 22 ⊂ Sav (see Fig. 3 and Sup-
plementary Figure 1). Allyl carbamate caged amino-coumarin 13 (see Supple-
mentary Figure 18a) was used as a substrate. The reaction conditions are collected
in Supplementary Table 10. Experiments were performed at 37 °C in a 96-well
plate. The fluorescence intensity at 450 nm derived from the produced 7-amino-4-
methylcoumarin 14 (excitation at 375 nm) was monitored with a Tecan Infinite
M1000 Pro (Supplementary Figure 18b). Potassium isocyanoacetate was found to
efficiently inhibit the catalytic activity of ruthenium complexes 1, 2 and ArM 22 ⊂
Sav. Based on this, potassium isocyanoacetate was added to the reaction mixture to
quench the reaction during the genetic optimization of the ArM’s activity. For the
screening of Sav variants, AT3 6 was used as a substrate. Reaction conditions are
listed in Supplementary Table 11 and were performed at 37 °C in an HPLC vial.
Potassium isocyanoacetate (500mM in water, 4 μL), tryptophanamide hydro-
chloride (10mM in water, 20μL) as an internal standard, acetonitrile (800μL), and
PBS (400 μL) were added to the reaction mixture. The resulting solution was
centrifuged (10,000g) and analyzed by UPLC-MS (Supplementary Figure 19).
TONs were determined based on the calibration curve of T3 7 (Supplementary
Figure 20).
Data availability. The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this
study are available either in the paper and in the Supplementary Information or
from the authors upon reasonable request.
Received: 28 February 2018 Accepted: 24 April 2018
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