Katsunori Tanaka

Metal complex catalysis within biological systems is largely limited to cell and bacterial systems. In this work, a glycoalbumin-Au^III complex was designed and developed that enables organ-specific, localized propargyl ester amidation with nearby proteins within live mice. The targeted reactivity can be imaged through the use of Cy7.5- and TAMRA-linked propargyl ester based fluorescent probes. This targeting system could enable the exploitation of other metal catalysis strategies for

The remarkable acceleration of 6 pi-azaelectrocyclization due to the combination of the C4-carbonyl and the C6-alkenyl or phenyl substituents in 1-azatrienes was found. This observation was rationalized by considering the remarkable orbital interaction between the HOMO and LUMO of 1-azatrienes, which were obtained by molecular orbital calculations. The formal synthesis of the unusual retinal metabolite, A2-E, was achieved by two types of the new one-pot synthesis of substituted pyridines by util

On target: Lysine residues in picomole samples of a peptide, proteins, and a monoclonal antibody were rapidly and selectively labeled by a dota-based probe (1, see scheme). Positron emission tomography imaging of [68Ga]dota-labeled orosomucoid and asialoorosomucoid for the first time visualized a difference in the clearance process of glycoproteins in the presence or absence of the sialic acid residue. Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/

Recently, PET has been paid a great deal of attention as a non-invasive imaging method. In this review, the recent advances of PET using biomolecules, such as peptides, monoclonal antibodies, proteins, oligonucleotides, and glycoproteins will be described. So far, PET of biomolecules has been mainly used for diagnosis of cancers. The biomolecules have been conjugated with the DOTA ligand, labeled with radiometals as the beta+ emitter, and targeted to specific tumors, where they have enabled visu

An efficient protocol of dehydration was developed under microfluidic conditions. The method was applied to a multikilogram synthesis of pristane, a biologically important natural product, which is now widely used as an adjuvant for monoclonal antibody production. [reaction: see text].

Body image: Self-activating Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and 6π azaelectrocyclization of lysine-based dendrimers (see picture) enable the in vivo dynamics and organ-specific accumulation of N-glycans to be visualized. The sugar structure and glycosyl bond linkages of N-glycans control the whole-body trafficking of the clusters in nude mice and a cancer model.

Recent studies have revealed various functions for the small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) in diverse biological phenomena, such as regulation of cell division, DNA repair and transcription, in yeast and animals. In contrast, only a limited number of proteins have been characterized in plants, although plant SUMO proteins are involved in many physiological processes, such as stress responses, regulation of flowering time and defense reactions to pathogen attack. Here, we reconstituted the Ar

The highly stereoselective asymmetric 6pi-azaelectrocyclization was achieved as a general synthetic method based on the reaction between the (E)-3-carbonyl-2,4,6-trienal compounds and the (-)-7-alkyl-cis-1-amino-2-indanol derivatives which are effective chiral amines. The 7-alkyl-substituted 2-indanol moiety of the cyclized products was efficiently removed by the novel manganese dioxide oxidation under remarkably mild conditions, and the method was successfully applied to the formal synthesis of

Highly stereoselective asymmetric 6pi-azaelectrocyclization was achieved with generality, based on the reaction between the (E)-3-carbonyl-2,4,6-trienal compounds and the (-)-7-alkyl-cis-1-amino-2-indanol derivatives as the effective novel chiral amines. Furthermore, the chiral auxiliaries of the cyclized products obtained were efficiently removed by the novel manganese dioxide oxidation under remarkably mild conditions, and the method was successfully applied to the formal synthesis of opticall

An emerging approach in the field of targeted drug delivery is the establishment of abiotic metal-triggered prodrug mechanisms that can control the release of bioactive drugs. Currently, the design of prodrugs that use abiotic metals as a trigger relies heavily on uncaging strategies. Here, we introduce a strategy based on the gold-catalyzed activation of a phenanthridinium-based prodrug via hydroamination under physiological conditions. To make the prodrug strategy biocompatible, a gold artific

While elucidating the inhibitory mechanism of a hydrolytic enzyme by aldehyde-containing natural products, we discovered a reaction involving a rapid 6π-azaelectrocyclization of azatrienes generated from aldehyde with lysine residues. The electrocyclic reaction of the 1-azatriene system, a cyclization precursor, exhibited a substituent effect. Structure-reactivity studies showed that azaelectrocyclization, which usually proceeds in low yield at high temperatures, produced a quantitative yield in

Considering the intrinsic toxicities of transition metals, their incorporation into drug therapies must operate at minimal amounts while ensuring adequate catalytic activity within complex biological systems. As a way to address this issue, this study investigates the design of synthetic prodrugs that are not only tuned to be harmless, but can be robustly transformed in vivo to reach therapeutically relevant levels. To accomplish this, retrosynthetic prodrug design highlights the potential of na

The absolute configuration of gymnocin-B has been determined to be (S)-10 and (S)-37. Three challenges toward the configurational assignment of this largest of the polyether marine toxin include (i) introduction of p-(meso-triphenylporphyrin)-cinnamate group (TPPcinnamate) on sterically hindered 10-, 37-hydroxyls under mild conditions, (ii) conformational analysis in the presence of TPPcinnamates at C-10 and C-37 positions on the flexible seven-membered rings embodied in a large polyether ladder