New Luminescent Transition Metal Polypyridines Containing Multiple Biotin Moieties as Crosslinkers for Avidin

The target of this project is the design of luminescent transition metal complexes containing multiple biotin moieties as new crosslinkers for avidin. The strong avidin-biotin interaction has been commonly utilized in bioanalytical applications. Although many biotin derivatives have been designed, fluorescent reagents containing two or more biotin units have not been reported. These compounds are particularly interesting because they can act as crosslinkers for avidin to increase the number of biotin-binding sites and to afford polymeric biomolecular architectures. In this project, new luminescent transition metal complexes containing multiple biotin moieties will be synthesized and characterized, and their photophysical and electrochemical properties will be studied. The binding of these complexes to avidin will be investigated by different methods including absorption and emission spectroscopy, resonance-energy transfer quenching studies, laser-scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy, and size-exclusion chromatography. The results will be used in the development of new bioanalytical assays.