Photocatalysis in Chemical Biology: Extending the Scope of Optochemical Control and Towards New Frontiers in Semisynthetic Bioconjugates and Biocatalysis

Abstract

Biomedical research has been empowered by tools that enable spatial and temporal control of biological systems. These have predominantly come from photocaged bioactive molecules (optochemical control; N. Ankenbruck, T. Courtney, Y. Naro, A. Deiters, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 2768–2798) and light-dependent proteins (optogenetic control; L. Fenno, O. Yizhar, K. Deisseroth, Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2011, 34, 389–412). Recent advances in photocatalysis offer the opportunity to amplify these strategies by providing new dimension of biorthogonality. Photocatalysis also empowers bioconjugation with unprecedented reactivities enabling new crosslinking chemistry or biomolecule functionalization, while merging photocatalysis with biocatalysis extends the scope of both of these powerful classes of transformation.