Switchable molecular tweezers: design and applications

• Pablo Msellem,
• Maksym Dekthiarenko,
• Nihal Hadj Seyd and
• Guillaume Vives

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 504–539, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.45

Potent hemithioindigo-based antimitotics photocontrol the microtubule cytoskeleton in cellulo

• Alexander Sailer,
• Franziska Ermer,
• Yvonne Kraus,
• Rebekkah Bingham,
• Ferdinand H. Lutter,
• Julia Ahlfeld and
• Oliver Thorn-Seshold

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 125–134, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.14

• Alexander Sailer Franziska Ermer Yvonne Kraus Rebekkah Bingham Ferdinand H. Lutter Julia Ahlfeld Oliver Thorn-Seshold Department of Pharmacy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Butenandtstraße 5-13, Munich 81377, Germany 10.3762/bjoc.16.14 Abstract Background: Hemithioindigo is a promising

• molecular photoswitch that has only recently been applied as a photoswitchable pharmacophore for control over bioactivity in cellulo. Uniquely, in contrast to other photoswitches that have been applied to biology, the pseudosymmetric hemithioindigo scaffold has allowed the creation of both dark-active and

• lit-active photopharmaceuticals for the same binding site by a priori design. However, the potency of previous hemithioindigo photopharmaceuticals has not been optimal for their translation to other biological models. Results: Inspired by the structure of tubulin-inhibiting indanones, we created

In search of visible-light photoresponsive peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) for reversible control of DNA hybridization

• Lei Zhang,
• Greta Linden and
• Olalla Vázquez

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 2500–2508, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.243

• , artificial probes activated by visible-light irradiation are highly desired in biological applications. Here, we report two novel types of visible-light photoswitchable peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) based on the molecular transducers: hemithioindigo and tetra-ortho-fluoroazobenzene. Our study reveals that the

• first compounds here reported, may find applications in different fields such as chemical biology, nanotechnology and materials science. Keywords: azobenzene; hemithioindigo; peptide nucleic acid (PNA); photoswitch; visible-light irradiation; Introduction Light-driven control of oligonucleotide

• -ortho-fluoroazobenzene (oF4Azo) and the hemithioindigo (HTI) photoswitches; the latter has not been studied in the context of photoregulation of oligonucleotides before. The UV–vis measurements of these probes suggested that the PNA(oF4Azo) displayed superior photochemical properties to control