Use in Biological Systems
As mentioned above, the use of bioorthogonal reactions to tag biomolecules requires that one half of the reactive "click" pair is installed in the target molecule, while the other is attached to an optical probe. When the probe is added to a biological system, it will selectively conjugate with the target molecule.
The most common method of installing bioorthogonal reactivity into a target biomolecule is through metabolic labeling. Cells are immersed in a medium where access to nutrients is limited to synthetically modified analogues of standard fuels such as sugars. Consequently, these altered biomolecules are incorporated into the cells in the same manner as their wild-type brethren. The optical probe is then incorporated into the system to image the fate of the altered biomolecules. Other methods of functionalization include enzymatically inserting azides into proteins, and synthesizing phospholipids conjugated to cyclooctynes.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Biology, Systems of Interest, Biocompatible Click Cycloladdition Reactions in Chemical Biology
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