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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Chemical reporters for biological discovery

Nature Chemical Biology volume 9, pages 475–484 (2013)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 14 February 2014

This article has been updated

Abstract

Functional tools are needed to understand complex biological systems. Here we review how chemical reporters in conjunction with bioorthogonal labeling methods can be used to image and retrieve nucleic acids, proteins, glycans, lipids and other metabolites in vitro, in cells as well as in whole organisms. By tagging these biomolecules, researchers can now monitor their dynamics in living systems and discover specific substrates of cellular pathways. These advances in chemical biology are thus providing important tools to characterize biological pathways and are poised to facilitate our understanding of human diseases.

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Figure 1: Bioorthogonal labeling of biomolecules.
Figure 2: Applications of bioorthogonal chemical reporters.
Figure 3: Chemical reporters for nucleic acid synthesis and modifications.
Figure 4: Amino acid reporters for site- and residue-selective labeling of proteins.
Figure 5: Glycan chemical reporters.
Figure 6: Protein lipidation chemical reporters.
Figure 7: Chemical reporters for other post-translational modifications.

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Change history

  • 19 December 2013

    In the version of this Review Article initially published, a double bond was missing from the chemical structure of the cyclooctene on the left side of the reaction arrow in Figure 1e. The chemical structure has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Rangan and N. Westcott for helpful comments on the manuscript. H.C.H. acknowledges support from Ellison Medical Foundation and US National Institutes of Health–National Institute of General Medical Sciences (1R01GM087544).

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  1. Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York, USA

    Markus Grammel & Howard C Hang

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  1. Markus Grammel
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M.G. and H.C.H. wrote this review.

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Correspondence to Howard C Hang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Grammel, M., Hang, H. Chemical reporters for biological discovery. Nat Chem Biol 9, 475–484 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1296

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