Click-fluorescent dyes for recognition of soluble amyloid oligomers

    Design and synthesis of click-BODIPY and click-aza-BODIPY dyes that could report on and differentiate among various conformations of soluble amyloid oligomers. A dye (at nM concentrations) that provides a significant (1 to 2 orders of magnitude) emission enhancement upon binding to a specific Aβ oligomer should be a suitable candidate for in vivo studies, which is our long-term objective. Specifically, we have been focusing on the following:

Synthesis of structurally and functionally diverse small molecules based on BODIPY and aza-BODIPY dyes scaffolds using click chemistry approaches;

Investigation of the interactions of click-BODIPY and click-aza-BODIPY dyes with soluble oligomers of amyloid peptides and other amyloidogenic proteins using spectroscopic techniques

Ionic liquid-controlled intra- and intermolecular interactions

Establishing and investigating a paradigm that structural variations within the cationic and anionic counterparts of ILs can control the conformational and stereochemical bias of small molecules. The ability to control chemical, physical and structural properties of molecules and their assemblies by simply placing them in specifically designed solvents is currently an underdeveloped area of research, but it could represent a fundamentally interesting and significant paradigm with far-reaching applications. Specifically, we have been focusing on the following:

IL-controlled intramolecular interactions – investigating the ability of ILs to affect structural (conformational and/or stereochemical) integrity of small molecules via modification of the anion and cation pair of the ILs

IL-controlled intermolecular interactions – evaluating the application of ILs as suitable media for modulating self-assembly processes of small molecules, i.e., dimerization/oligomerization, as well as the formation of supramolecular assemblies