Volume 135, Issue 21 e202219182
Forschungsartikel

Giving Gold Wings: Ultrabright and Fragmentation Free Mass Spectrometry Reporters for Barcoding, Bioconjugation Monitoring, and Data Storage

Nathaniel L. Dominique

Nathaniel L. Dominique

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556 USA

Contribution: Conceptualization (supporting), Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), ​Investigation (lead), Methodology (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
Isabel M. Jensen

Isabel M. Jensen

Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996 USA

Contribution: ​Investigation (supporting), Methodology (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Gurkiran Kaur

Gurkiran Kaur

Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996 USA

Contribution: ​Investigation (supporting), Methodology (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Chandler Q. Kotseos

Chandler Q. Kotseos

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556 USA

Contribution: ​Investigation (supporting), Methodology (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Dr. William C. Boggess

Dr. William C. Boggess

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556 USA

Contribution: ​Investigation (supporting), Methodology (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Prof. David M. Jenkins

Corresponding Author

Prof. David M. Jenkins

Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996 USA

Contribution: Conceptualization (supporting), Funding acquisition (equal), Project administration (equal), Supervision (supporting), Writing - original draft (supporting), Writing - review & editing (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Prof. Jon P. Camden

Corresponding Author

Prof. Jon P. Camden

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556 USA

Contribution: Conceptualization (lead), Funding acquisition (equal), Project administration (equal), Supervision (lead), Writing - original draft (lead), Writing - review & editing (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 28 February 2023
Citations: 1

Abstract

The widespread application of laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS) highlights the need for a bright and multiplexable labeling platform. While ligand-capped Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) have emerged as a promising LDI-MS contrast agent, the predominant thiol ligands suffer from low ion yields and extensive fragmentation. In this work, we develop a N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand platform that enhances AuNP LDI-MS performance. NHC scaffolds are tuned to generate barcoded AuNPs which, when benchmarked against thiol-AuNPs, are bright mass tags and form unfragmented ions in high yield. To illustrate the transformative potential of NHC ligands, the mass tags were employed in three orthogonal applications: monitoring a bioconjugation reaction, performing multiplexed imaging, and storing and reading encoded information. These results demonstrate that NHC-nanoparticle systems are an ideal platform for LDI-MS and greatly broaden the scope of nanoparticle contrast agents.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.