CLICKREAL

The CLICKREAL project aims at exploring the reaction of mesoionic compounds with strained alkynes. This proposal is based on preliminary results obtained by our laboratories proving that mesoionics undergo fast [3+2] cycloaddition and retro-Diels-Alder reactions with cycloalkynes. This process recently discovered by our group leads to chemoselective ligation between the two partners and, in the same time, to the release of a fragment molecule. This type of reaction is therefore of strong potential both for chemical biology and nanomedecine since it can be used to develop new reagents for bioconjugation, proteomics or drug release systems. Based on our previous results and on the development of molecular modeling tools, the project envision to explore the basic chemistry of a series of designed mesoionics, to explore their capacity to undergo [3+2] cycloaddition/retro-Diels-Alder reactions with strained cycloalkynes and finally to identify the new chemoselective and bioorthogonal click and release reaction.