Biology & Life Sciences

Editor’s Picks: Chemical Tools & Probes

Updated June 20, 2017 Curated Collections

Small molecules that allow us to observe and manipulate biological systems by targeting and binding to specific targets are powerful tools in the field of Chemical Biology. These probes can inhibit a protein’s function, interact with nucleic acids, disrupt cellular processes and pathways, as well as allow researchers to study how a biological target functions within a given system. In this Editor’s Picks, PLOS ONE Associate Editor Carla Pegoraro highlights some of the latest research on the development and uses of chemical probes, including in vivo and in vitro imaging, drug discovery, protein functions and cellular processes.

Image Credit: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160522.g003

Jump to section

Research Articles

Research Articles

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0011985

PLOS ONE Use of Activity-Based Probes to Develop High Throughput Screening Assays That Can Be Performed in Complex Cell Extracts
August 5, 2010 Edgar Deu, Zhimou Yang, Flora Wang, Michael Klemba, Matthew Bogyo
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0131716

PLOS ONE The Histone Methyltransferase Inhibitor A-366 Uncovers a Role for G9a/GLP in the Epigenetics of Leukemia
July 6, 2015 William N. Pappano, Jun Guo, Yupeng He, Debra Ferguson, Sujatha Jagadeeswaran, Donald J. Osterling, Wenqing Gao, Julie K. Spence, Marina Pliushchev, Ramzi F. Sweis, Fritz G. Buchanan, Michael R. Michaelides, Alexander R. Shoemaker, Chris Tse, Gary G. Chiang
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0132818

PLOS ONE Design of a Selective Substrate and Activity Based Probe for Human Neutrophil Serine Protease 4
July 14, 2015 Paulina Kasperkiewicz, Marcin Poreba, Scott J. Snipas, S. Jack Lin, Daniel Kirchhofer, Guy S. Salvesen, Marcin Drag
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0134317

PLOS ONE A Pan-GTPase Inhibitor as a Molecular Probe
August 6, 2015 Lin Hong, Yuna Guo, Soumik BasuRay, Jacob O. Agola, Elsa Romero, Denise S. Simpson, Chad E. Schroeder, Peter Simons, Anna Waller, Matthew Garcia, Mark Carter, Oleg Ursu, Kristine Gouveia, Jennifer E. Golden, Jeffrey Aubé, Angela Wandinger-Ness, Larry A. Sklar
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0115644

PLOS ONE Synthesis and Evaluation of a Novel Adenosine-Ribose Probe for Global-Scale Profiling of Nucleoside and Nucleotide-Binding Proteins
February 11, 2015 Shikha Mahajan, Roman Manetsch, David J. Merkler, Stanley M. Stevens Jr.
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0149845

PLOS ONE Molecular Probing of the HPV-16 E6 Protein Alpha Helix Binding Groove with Small Molecule Inhibitors
February 25, 2016 Anne Rietz, Dino P. Petrov, Matthew Bartolowits, Marsha DeSmet, V. Jo Davisson, Elliot J. Androphy
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0157146

PLOS ONE Discovery of Small-Molecule Modulators of the Human Y₄ Receptor
June 13, 2016 Gregory Sliwoski, Mario Schubert, Jan Stichel, David Weaver, Annette G. Beck-Sickinger, Jens Meiler
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0161557

PLOS ONE A Molecular Probe for the Detection of Polar Lipids in Live Cells
August 23, 2016 Christie A. Bader, Tetyana Shandala, Elizabeth A. Carter, Angela Ivask, Taryn Guinan, Shane M. Hickey, Melissa V. Werrett, Phillip J. Wright, Peter V. Simpson, Stefano Stagni, Nicolas H. Voelcker, Peter A. Lay, Massimiliano Massi, Sally E. Plush, Douglas A. Brooks
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0131037

PLOS ONE Development of a Bioluminescent Nitroreductase Probe for Preclinical Imaging
June 25, 2015 Anzhelika G. Vorobyeva, Michael Stanton, Aurélien Godinat, Kjetil B. Lund, Grigory G. Karateev, Kevin P. Francis, Elizabeth Allen, Juri G. Gelovani, Emmet McCormack, Mark Tangney, Elena A. Dubikovskaya
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0055751

PLOS ONE Phosphorescent Imaging of Living Cells Using a Cyclometalated Iridium(III) Complex
February 14, 2013 Dik-Lung Ma, Hai-Jing Zhong, Wai-Chung Fu, Daniel Shiu-Hin Chan, Hiu-Yee Kwan, Wang-Fun Fong, Lai-Hon Chung, Chun-Yuen Wong, Chung-Hang Leung
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0120982

PLOS ONE Co-Encapsulating the Fusogenic Peptide INF7 and Molecular Imaging Probes in Liposomes Increases Intracellular Signal and Probe Retention
March 27, 2015 Scott R. Burks, Eric A. Legenzov, Erik W. Martin, Changqing Li, Wuyuan Lu, Joseph P. Y. Kao
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0160522

PLOS ONE Cathepsin Activity-Based Probes and Inhibitor for Preclinical Atherosclerosis Imaging and Macrophage Depletion
August 17, 2016 Ihab Abd-Elrahman, Hisanori Kosuge, Tommy Wises Sadan, Yael Ben-Nun, Karen Meir, Chen Rubinstein, Matthew Bogyo, Michael V. McConnell, Galia Blum
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0121920

PLOS ONE SELEX Aptamer Used as a Probe to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells in Peripheral Blood of Pancreatic Cancer Patients
March 23, 2015 Jinqiang Zhang, Shaohua Li, Fang Liu, Lanping Zhou, Ningsheng Shao, Xiaohang Zhao
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0129058

PLOS ONE New Small Molecules Targeting Apoptosis and Cell Viability in Osteosarcoma
June 3, 2015 Doris Maugg, Ina Rothenaigner, Kenji Schorpp, Harish Kumar Potukuchi, Eberhard Korsching, Daniel Baumhoer, Kamyar Hadian, Jan Smida, Michaela Nathrath
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0125494

PLOS ONE Towards Fluorescence In Vivo Hybridization (FIVH) Detection of H. pylori in Gastric Mucosa Using Advanced LNA Probes
April 27, 2015 Sílvia Fontenete, Marina Leite, Nuno Guimarães, Pedro Madureira, Rui Manuel Ferreira, Céu Figueiredo, Jesper Wengel, Nuno Filipe Azevedo
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0137410

PLOS ONE Mechanism of Action and Initial, In Vitro SAR of an Inhibitor of the Shigella flexneri Virulence Regulator VirF
September 9, 2015 Anthony A. Emanuele, George A. Garcia
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0131330

PLOS ONE A Fluorescent Probe to Measure DNA Damage and Repair
August 26, 2015 Allison G. Condie, Yan Yan, Stanton L. Gerson, Yanming Wang
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0161413

PLOS ONE Mitochondrial Probe Methyltriphenylphosphonium (TPMP) Inhibits the Krebs Cycle Enzyme 2-Oxoglutarate Dehydrogenase
August 18, 2016 Moustafa Elkalaf, Petr Tůma, Martin Weiszenstein, Jan Polák, Jan Trnka
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0140927

PLOS ONE A Metabolic Probe-Enabled Strategy Reveals Uptake and Protein Targets of Polyunsaturated Aldehydes in the Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum
October 23, 2015 Stefanie Wolfram, Natalie Wielsch, Yvonne Hupfer, Bettina Mönch, Hui-Wen Lu-Walther, Rainer Heintzmann, Oliver Werz, Aleš Svatoš, Georg Pohnert

EveryONE - The PLOS ONE Community Blog

Chemical Biology at PLOS

Research at the interface of chemistry and biology

EXPLORE

PLOS ONE Welcomes Chemical Tools & Probes Research Submissions

PLOS ONE is a trusted, community-oriented, peer-reviewed journal. Work that meets strict technical and ethical standards is published and immediately available to anyone to read, discuss and reuse.

JOURNAL INFORMATION