Figure 1: Architecture and synthetic design of photoswitchable tethered ligands (PTLs) to control ligand-gated receptor proteins. | Nature Communications

Figure 1: Architecture and synthetic design of photoswitchable tethered ligands (PTLs) to control ligand-gated receptor proteins.

From: Optical control of endogenous receptors and cellular excitability using targeted covalent photoswitches

Figure 1

(a) Schematic representation of the PTL modular parts: ligand (blue), photoswitch (green) and reactive group (red). (b,c) Design of PTLs bearing electrophilic and nucleophilic groups to label endogenous kainate receptors (b) The ‘head’ (glutamate-azo-azide, left) and ‘tail’ molecules (alkyne-electrophile, right) are precursors of copper(I)-catalysed alkyne-azide cycloaddition and can be combined to yield PTLs of different lengths and reactive groups. (c) Example of full PTL (compound 9) obtained from precursors 1 and 6, and showing the photoisomerization between the trans (green light, λ=500 nm) and cis configurations (violet light, λ=380 nm).

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