BCN Linkers

The dibenzocyclooctyne group (DBCO) is thermally stable with high specific reactivity toward azide group through strain-promoted click reaction in the absence of a catalyst. The ligation reaction is very fast and results in almost quantitative yield of stable triazoles. Within physiological temperature and pH ranges, the DBCO group does not react with amines or hydroxyls, which are naturally present in many biomolecules. Thus, DBCO has found broad application for studying dynamic biological systems such as live cells, whole organisms, and liv animals, ranging from visualizing protein expression, tracking protein localization, measuring protein activity and turnover, to nucleic acid immobilization and tracking, and lipid labeling in living cells and live animals.