Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lan Y
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3309271 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Lan Yun Y Langlet-Bertin Bérangère B Abbate Vincenzo V Vermeer Louic S LS Kong Xiaole X Sullivan Kelly E KE Leborgne Christian C Scherman Daniel D Hider Robert C RC Drake Alex F AF Bansal Sukhvinder S SS Kichler Antoine A Mason A James AJ
Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology 20100601 9
Nonviral vectors that harness the change in pH in endosomes, are increasingly being used to deliver cargoes, including nucleic acids, into mammalian cells. Here we present evidence that the pK(a) of the beta-NH(2) in 2,3-diaminopropionic acid (Dap) is sufficiently lowered, when Dap is incorporated into peptides, that its protonation state is sensitive to the pH changes that occur during endosomal acidification. The lowered pK(a) of around 6.3 is stabilized by the increased electron-withdrawing e ...[more]