The chemical modification of proteins is a valuable technique in understanding the functions, interactions, and dynamics of proteins. Reactivity and selectivity are key issues in current chemical modification of proteins. The Michael addition-like thiol–ene reaction is a useful tool that can be used to tag proteins with high selectivity for the solvent-exposed thiol groups of proteins. To obtain insight into the bioconjugation of proteins with this method, a kinetic analysis was performed. New vinyl-substituted pyridine derivatives were designed and synthesized. The reactivity of these vinyl tags with L-cysteine was evaluated by UV absorption and high-resolution NMR spectroscopy. The results show that protonation of pyridine plays a key role in the overall reaction rates. The kinetic parameters were assessed in protein modification. The different reactivities of these vinyl tags with solvent-exposed cysteine is valuable information in the selective labeling of proteins with multiple functional groups.

Site-specific labeling of proteins with lanthanide ions offers great opportunities for investigating the structure, function, and dynamics of proteins by virtue of the unique properties of lanthanides. Lanthanide-tagged proteins can be studied by NMR, X-ray, fluorescence, and EPR spectroscopy. However, the rigidity of a lanthanide tag in labeling of proteins plays a key role in the determination of protein structures and interactions. Pseudocontact shift (PCS) and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (PRE) are valuable long-range structure restraints in structural-biology NMR spectroscopy. Generation of these paramagnetic restraints generally relies on site-specific tagging of the target proteins with paramagnetic species. To avoid nonspecific interaction between the target protein and paramagnetic tag and achieve reliable paramagnetic effects, the rigidity, stability, and size of lanthanide tag is highly important in paramagnetic labeling of proteins. Here 4′-mercapto-2,2′: 6′,2′′-terpyridine-6,6′′-dicarboxylic acid (4MTDA) is introduced as a a rigid paramagnetic and fluorescent tag which can be site-specifically attached to a protein by formation of a disulfide bond. 4MTDA can be readily immobilized by coordination of the protein side chain to the lanthanide ion. Large PCSs and RDCs were observed for 4MTDA-tagged proteins in complexes with paramagnetic lanthanide ions. At an excitation wavelength of 340 nm, the complex formed by protein–4MTDA and Tb³⁺ produces high fluorescence with the main emission at 545 nm. These interesting features of 4MTDA make it a very promising tag that can be exploited in NMR, fluorescence, and EPR spectroscopic studies on protein structure, interaction, and dynamics.

The site-specific labeling of proteins with paramagnetic lanthanides offers unique opportunities for NMR spectroscopic analysis in structural biology. Herein, we report an interesting way of obtaining paramagnetic structural restraints by employing noncovalent interaction between a lanthanide metal complex, [Ln(L)₃]ⁿ⁻ (L=derivative of dipicolinic acid, DPA), and a protein. These complexes formed by lanthanides and DPA derivatives, which have different substitution patterns on the DPA derivatives, produce diverse thermodynamic and paramagnetic properties when interacting with proteins. The binding affinity of [Ln(L)₃]ⁿ⁻ with proteins, as well as the determined paramagnetic tensor, are tunable by changing the substituents on the ligands. These noncovalent interactions between [Ln(L)₃]ⁿ⁻ and proteins offer great opportunities in the tagging of proteins with paramagnetic lanthanides. We expect that this method will be useful for obtaining multiple angles and distance restraints of proteins in structural biology.

Site-specific labeling of proteins with paramagnetic lanthanides offers unique opportunities by virtue of NMR spectroscopy in structural biology. In particular, these paramagnetic data, generated by the anisotropic paramagnetism including pseudocontact shifts (PCS), residual dipolar couplings (RDC), and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (PRE), are highly valuable in structure determination and mobility studies of proteins and protein–ligand complexes. Herein, we present a new way to label proteins in a site-specific manner with a high-affinity and chemically stable tag, 4-vinyl(pyridine-2,6-diyl)bismethylenenitrilo tetrakis(acetic acid) (4VPyMTA), through thiol alkylation. Its performance has been demonstrated in G47C and E64C mutants of human ubiquitin both in vitro and in a crowded environment. In comparison with the published tags, 4VPyMTA has several interesting features: 1) it has a very high binding affinity for lanthanides (higher than EDTA), 2) there is no heterogeneity in complexes with lanthanides, 3) the derivatized protein is stable and potentially applicable to the in situ analysis of proteins.