Targeted proximity-labelling of protein tyrosines <i>via</i> flavin-dependent photoredox catalysis with mechanistic evidence for a radical–radical recombination pathway
Taylor O. Hope, Tamara Reyes Robles, Keun Ah Ryu, Steven Mauries, Nicole Removski, Jacinthe Maisonneuve, Rob Oslund, Olugbeminiyi Fadeyi, Mathieu Frenette
Abstract
phenoxy radical-mediated tyrosine-biotin phenol coupling on live cells. To gain insight into this coupling reaction, we conducted detailed mechanistic analysis for RFT-photomediated activation of phenols for tyrosine labelling. Contrary to previously proposed mechanisms, we find that the initial covalent binding step between the tag and tyrosine is not radical addition, but rather radical-radical recombination. The proposed mechanism may also explain the mecha-nism of other reported tyrosine-tagging approaches. Competitive kinetics experiments show that phenoxyl radicals are generated with several reactive intermediates in the proposed mechanism-primarily with the excited riboflavin-photocatalyst or singlet oxygen-and these multiple pathways for phenoxyl radical generation from phenols increase the likelihood of radical-radical recombination.