The photochemistry of phthalimide derivatives of the electron-rich amino acids tyrosine, histidine and tryptophan 8-10 was studied with respect to photoinduced electron-transfer (PET) induced decarboxylation and Norrish II bond cleavage. Whereas exclusive photodecarboxylation of the tyrosine substrate 8 was observed, the histidine compound 9 resulted in a mixture of histamine and preferential N...

To develop a fluorescent ruthenium complex for biosensing, we synthesized a novel sulfhydryl-reactive compound, 4-bromophenanthroline bis-2,2'-dipyridine Ruthenium bis (hexafluorophosphate). The synthesized Ru(II) complex was crosslinked with thiol-modified protein G to form a universal reagent for fluorescent immunoassays. The resulting Ru(II)-protein G conjugates were identified by sodium dod...

The E. coli copper resistance protein PcoC enhances survival of a bacterium under conditions of extreme copper stress. This small protein has no cysteines, but does have an unusual methionine-rich sequence motif, suggesting that methionine ligation may be important in Cu binding. It is shown that PcoC binds both Cu(I) and Cu(II), in addition to binding Hg(II) and Ag(I). Previously crystallograp...

Hpn-like (Hpnl) is a unique histidine- and glutamine-rich protein found only in Helicobacter pylori and plays a role on nickel homeostasis. We constructed the fluorescent sensor proteins CYHpnl and CYHpnl_1-48 (C-terminal glutamine-rich region truncated) using enhanced cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins (eCFP and eYFP) as the donor-acceptor pair to monitor the interactions of Hpnl with metal ...