DOI: 10.1002/chem.201003131
Catalyst-Free Conjugation and In Situ Quantification of Nanoparticle Ligand
Surface Density Using Fluorogenic Cu-Free Click Chemistry
Rasmus I. Jølck, Honghao Sun, Rolf H. Berg, and Thomas L. Andresen*[a]
Surface functionalized nanoparticles have found wide-
spread applications within the fields of medical diagnostics,[1]
drug delivery,[1,2] sensor development,[3] and vaccines.[4] At-
tachment of highly specific biomolecules such as peptides,
proteins, antibodies, or apatamers enables fine-tuning of the
nanoparticle constructs resulting in highly functionalized
nanoscale materials with high specificity towards, for exam-
ple, analytes, enzymes, or over-expressed or selectively ex-
pressed receptors on diseased cells. Controlling the biomole-
cule surface density is often a crucial parameter for obtain-
ing the desired properties of the nanomaterial, in particular
within the field of drug delivery.[5] To ensure the right com-
position of the nanoparticle construct, the number of ligands
immobilized on the surface must be analyzed. This has pre-
viously been done by measuring the fluorescence intensity
of probes covalently attached to the targeting ligands.[6]
Other methods include phosphorus and amino acid analy-
sis,[7] SDS-PAGE,[8] or protein determination assays.[9] Gen-
erally, these techniques are invasive, laborious and time con-
suming, and are often limited to a semiquantitative determi-
nation of the surface density. To rapidly expand the field of
highly functionalized nanoparticles there is a crucial need
for new methods to efficiently functionalize and analyze
nanoparticles. Surface coupling reactions should be fast, effi-
cient, reproducible, mild, and ideally include a reporter
functionality that allows direct quantification of coupling ef-
ficiency without prior purification. To fulfill these require-
ments, we have directed our attention towards the pro-fluo-
rophore 3-azidocoumarin.[10] Coumarin derivatives are often
used as biological probes, since they are both biocompatible
and easy to manipulate synthetically. Introduction of an
azido functionality at the 3-position results in efficient
quenching of the coumarin fluorescence due to electron
donation from the electron-rich a-nitrogen of the azido
group into the coumarin backbone.[10] Triazole formation,
which can be achieved by the CuI-catalyzed azide/alkyne
Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction[11] (“Click” reac-
tion) or by addition of strain-promoted[12] or electron-defi-
cient alkynes,[13] eliminates the quenching through the for-
mation of a triazole ring, thus resulting in a strong fluores-
cence signal. We envisioned that 3-azidocoumarins could be
attached to the desired targeting ligand and function as both
a highly specific (orthogonal) conjugation linker molecule
and as a quantitative reporter of coupling efficiency in situ.
To test this approach we have investigated PEGylated lipo-
somes that have exposed terminal alkynes or cyclooctynes
at the distal end of the PEG and shown that post-functional-
ization with 3-azidocoumarin-modified RGD peptides[14] is
highly efficient. Coupling was achieved in high yield by the
CuI-catalyzed approach; however, the direct quantitative de-
termination of the conjugation efficiency was impaired due
to quenching of the formed fluorophore by CuII. By adopt-
ing copper-free Click conditions, excellent conjugation effi-
ciency was achieved, which was monitored by the direct and
quantitative in-situ read-out that the new method provides.
The new approach utilizes the 3-azido-7-(carboxy me-
thoxy)-chromen-2-one (3), which was synthesized in six
steps from 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde (1) and N-acetylgly-
cine (2) with slight modifications to previously described
methods (Scheme 1).[10,15] Compound 3 was attached to the
N-terminal of the RGD-peptide after insertion of two gly-
cine spacers, resulting in the peptide 4. Compound 3 was
found to be fully compatible with standard conditions used
in Fmoc solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). The two
alkyne-modified lipids 6 and 8 were synthesized in a single
step from commercially available DSPE-PEG2000-NH2 by
acylation with 4-pentynoic acid (5) and 7, respectively. Com-
pound 7 was synthesized as previously described else-
where.[16] The model RGD-peptide 4 used in the surface
conjugation studies was synthesized by standard Fmoc SPPS
methodology using a TentaGel resin with the RinkAmide
linker (for a detailed description of the synthesis protocol
see the Supporting Information). Visualization of the com-
pounds containing an aromatic azide functionality by
matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight
mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was not possible due
to laser-induced photodissociation of the aromatic azides.[17]
However, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-
MS) gave the expected masses. Small unilamellar vesicles
(SUVs) with the following compositions; liposome A:
DSPC/DSPE-PEG2000/6 (95:4:1) and liposome B: DSPC/
DSPE-PEG2000/8 (95:4:1) were prepared by the method de-
scribed by Bangham et al.[18] The liposomes were character-
ized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) (liposome A: (129ꢀ
[a] R. I. Jølck, Dr. H. Sun, Prof. R. H. Berg, Dr. T. L. Andresen
Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde (Denmark)
Fax : (+45)46-77-47-91
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
3326
ꢀ 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Chem. Eur. J. 2011, 17, 3326 – 3331