FastClick™ 5-TAMRA Azide

FastClick™ 5-TAMRA Azide contains both the CAG moiety of FastClick (for assisting click efficiency) and 5-TAMRA fluorophore (as the fluorescence tag) for developing 5-TAMRA-based fluorescent probes. 5-TAMRA azide is one of the most widely used orange fluorophores, in particular, for labeling alkyne-modified peptides and other small biomolecules. It has almost the identical fluorescence spectra to Alexa Fluor 546, a rhodamine analog. FastClick™ reagents have been developed by the scientists of AAT Bioquest for enhancing the yield and reaction speed of copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction. They contain a copper-chelating ligand that significantly stabilizes the Cu(I) oxidation state and thus accelerates the click reaction. They do not require the use of an external copper-chelator (such as the common THPTA or BTTAA). The high concentration of copper chelators is known to have a detrimental effect on DNA/RNA, thus causing biocompatibility issues. The introduction of a copper-chelating moiety at the reporter molecule allows for a dramatic raise of the effective Cu(I) concentration at the reaction site and thus accelerates the reaction. Under extremely mild conditions the FastClick™ azides and alkynes react much faster in high yield compared to the corresponding conventional CuAAC reactions. Click chemistry was developed by K. Barry Sharpless as a robust and specific method of ligating two molecules together. Two important characteristics make click chemistry attractive for assembling biomolecules. First, click reactions are bio-orthogonal, thus the click chemistry-functionalized biomolecules would not react with the natural biomolecules that lack a clickable functional group. Second, the reactions proceed with ease under mild conditions, such as at room temperature and in aqueous media.