Application of Photoinduced Electron Transfer with Copper Nanoclusters toward Finding Characteristics of Protein Pockets.

Proteins possess various domains and subdomain pockets with varying hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity. The local polarities of these domains play a major role in oxidation-reduction-based biological processes. Herein, we have synthesized ultrasmall fluorescent copper nanoclusters (Cu NCs) that are directed to bind to the different domain-specific pockets of the model protein bovine serum albumins (BSA).