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A novel approach for fluorescent visualization of glycyrrhetic acid on a cell with a quantum dot

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Abstract

Glycyrrhetic acid (GA), a pentacyclic triterpenoid derivative obtained from hydrolysis of glycyrrhizic acid, was found to have synergistic anti-asthmatic effects with the β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) agonist via the β2AR-mediated pathway. This study visualized the location of GA on a human cell expressing β2AR via chemical biological approaches. A CdTe/ZnS quantum dot modified with an alkynyl group (QD-AL) was first synthesized, and an azide-terminal GA (ATGA) was also prepared. The QD-AL was used for fluorescence visualization of the distribution of GA on human embryonic kidney 293 cells expressing fusion β2AR (HEK293-β2AR) through the “click reaction” between QD-AL and ATGA. The average size of the QD-AL nanoparticle was about 10 nm, and its fluorescent emission wavelength was 620 nm. The location of GA on the HEK293-β2AR cell membrane can be visualized by the click reaction (between QD-AL and ATGA). The ability of QD-AL targeting to ATGA on the cell membrane of a HEK293-β2AR cell was further investigated using both confocal laser-scanning microscopy and a cellular uptake-inhibition assay. The results reveal that QD-AL can recognize ATGA on the cell membrane through the click reaction, which provides a new approach for visualizing the location of GA on the cell in an indirect way, and it can be applied to explore the synergistic anti-asthmatic mechanism of GA with β2AR agonist through the β2AR mediated pathway.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116044, China

    Jie Hou & Yi Xin

  2. College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Jie Hou, Qian Shi, Meirong Cao, Pengwei Pan & Gang Bai

  3. Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Resource Discovery, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China

    Guangbo Ge & Xuran Fan

Authors
  1. Jie Hou
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  2. Qian Shi
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  3. Meirong Cao
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  4. Pengwei Pan
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  5. Guangbo Ge
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  6. Xuran Fan
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  7. Gang Bai
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  8. Yi Xin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jie Hou.

Additional information

Published in Russian in Biokhimiya, 2014, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 33–40.

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Hou, J., Shi, Q., Cao, M. et al. A novel approach for fluorescent visualization of glycyrrhetic acid on a cell with a quantum dot. Biochemistry Moscow 79, 25–30 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297914010040

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297914010040

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