Harnessing acylhydrazone-oxime exchange reaction to achieve diverse synthesis of glycosite-specific antibody-drug conjugates.

Glycosite-specific antibody-drug conjugates (gsADCs), which carry cytotoxic payloads at the conserved -glycosylation site, N297, of an IgG, have emerged as a promising ADC format with better therapeutic index. Conjugating the payloads aldehyde-based chemistry is more friendly to IgGs, and has been widely investigated. However, the efficiency of introducing an aldehyde tag at the N297 site is poor due to the complicated procedures required, such as the multiple-enzyme-catalyzed IgG glycoengineering process and the successive oxidation step, which always results in heterogeneous products and poor stability.

C-terminal modification and functionalization of proteins via a self-cleavage tag triggered by a small molecule.

The precise modification or functionalization of the protein C-terminus is essential but full of challenges. Herein, a chemical approach to modify the C-terminus is developed by fusing a cysteine protease domain on the C-terminus of the protein of interest, which could achieve the non-enzymatic C-terminal functionalization by InsP-triggered cysteine protease domain self-cleavage. This method demonstrates a highly efficient way to achieve protein C-terminal functionalization and is compatible with a wide range of amine-containing molecules and proteins.

Novel Phenylmethylenecyclohexenone Derivatives as Potent TrxR Inhibitors Display High Antiproliferative Activity and Induce ROS, Apoptosis, and DNA Damage.

The natural product piperlonguminine (PL) has been shown to exert potential anticancer activity against several types of cancer via elevation of reactive oxidative species (ROS). However, the application of PL has been limited due to its poor water solubility and moderate activity. To improve PL's potency, we designed and synthesized a series of 17 novel phenylmethylenecyclohexenone derivatives and evaluated their pharmacological properties.

Development of pH/Glutathione-Responsive Theranostic Agents Activated by Glutathione S-Transferase π for Human Colon Cancer.

Two novel theranostic agents and have been designed and synthesized by covalently linking a β-carboline derivative, with antitumor activities and pH-responsive fluorescence, with a 2-exomethylenecyclohexanone moiety, which can be activated by the tumor-targeting glutathione (GSH)/glutathione S-transferase π (GSTπ). These agents showed pH- and GSH-dual-responsive fluorescence in tumor cells but not in normal cells. Importantly, selectively illuminated tumor tissue for up to 7 h and generated precise visualization of orthotopic colonic tumors through the blood circulation system in intraoperative mice.