[galoisien]

of gold nanoparticles...

Two current issues in my undergrad research that I'd like to explore...

Firstly I've been trying to use the click reaction to covalently bind ligands to smaller gold nanorods as described in this paper (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la7026303).

We would like to wrap our rods in the electrolyte polymer PSS-MA to prevent aggregation (rather than use the traditional thiol linkages Au-S-R), and have the carbohydrate ligand (which may itself be a polymer) hanging off the PSS-MA as described in the paper. We are probing the rotational behaviours of various biochemical ligands in a crowded cell-environment and we already have various strategies to get the rods into cells, but with various pros/cons. In any case, alternate forms of linkages will be useful for our research ... for example if we want to have two rods coupled to one ligand, no more,  no less.

Is there a convenient way to attach an acetylene group (can be preceded by an alkyl chain) on a carbohydrate or sugar? We would like to minimise the amount of amino groups on the sugar as excessive cationic sites are known to  be toxic to the cell membrane (for surfactant reasons). Could we take advantage of the equilibrium open chain form of the terminal ends of some carbohydrates? Or any convenient way to purchase such functionalised sugars?

Secondly if anyone has recommendations for sugars themselves, to probe, that would be awesome.

Thanks

[discodermolide]

of gold nanoparticles...

Two current issues in my undergrad research that I'd like to explore...

Firstly I've been trying to use the click reaction to covalently bind ligands to smaller gold nanorods as described in this paper (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la7026303).

We would like to wrap our rods in the electrolyte polymer PSS-MA to prevent aggregation (rather than use the traditional thiol linkages Au-S-R), and have the carbohydrate ligand (which may itself be a polymer) hanging off the PSS-MA as described in the paper. We are probing the rotational behaviours of various biochemical ligands in a crowded cell-environment and we already have various strategies to get the rods into cells, but with various pros/cons. In any case, alternate forms of linkages will be useful for our research ... for example if we want to have two rods coupled to one ligand, no more,  no less.

Is there a convenient way to attach an acetylene group (can be preceded by an alkyl chain) on a carbohydrate or sugar? We would like to minimise the amount of amino groups on the sugar as excessive cationic sites are known to  be toxic to the cell membrane (for surfactant reasons). Could we take advantage of the equilibrium open chain form of the terminal ends of some carbohydrates? Or any convenient way to purchase such functionalised sugars?

Secondly if anyone has recommendations for sugars themselves, to probe, that would be awesome.

Thanks

Look up the Corey-Fuchs reaction, conversion of aldehydes to acetylenes