Applications
Click chemistry has widespread applications. Some of them are:
- preparative organic synthesis of 1,4-substituted triazoles
- modification of peptide function with triazoles
- modification of natural products and pharmaceuticals
- drug discovery
- macrocyclizations using Cu(I) catalyzed triazole couplings
- modification of DNA and nucleotides by triazole ligation
- supramolecular chemistry: calixarenes, rotaxanes, and catenanes
- dendrimer design
- carbohydrate clusters and carbohydrate conjugation by Cu(1) catalyzed triazole ligation reactions
- polymers
- material science
- nanotechnology, and
- Bioconjugation, for example, azidocoumarin.
Click chemistry has also been used for selectively labeling biomolecules within biological systems. A Click reaction that is to be performed in a living system must meet an even more rigorous set of criteria than in an in vitro reaction. It must be bioorthogonal, meaning the reagents used may not interact with the biological system in any way, nor may they be toxic. The reaction must also occur at neutral pH and at or around body temperature. Most Click reactions have a high energy content. The reactions are irreversible and involve carbon-hetero atom bonding processes. An example is the Staudinger ligation of azides.
Read more about this topic: Click Chemistry