Popular Scientific Abstract
Biological research to the activity of peptides for instance, is investigated via a microscope mostly.
However, most components in a cell are invisible for the human eye. Therefore, they use a coloring
technique. By coloring specific parts of the cell, invisible cells will be visible by looking at the visible
part of the component. Now, the biologist can follow the peptide by following the colored part of the
bonded molecule.
However, mostly a microscope uses light with a specific wavelength that can damage the cell. A
solution for this problem can be the use of a molecule that absorbs light with another specific
wavelength that does not damage the cell while looking at the molecule.
Besides, we use the characteristics of fluorescent compounds. Fluorescent compounds absorb light
with a specific wavelength, while it emit after absorption another light with a different wavelength.
For instance, red light can be used for emitting infra-red (IR) by molecules that absorbed the red
light. Because of the difference in wavelength, special devices can interpret the emitted light into an
image, which can be seen by the human eye and can be investigated by a biologist.
A biological compound binds to the molecule we made. By absorbing red light by our molecule, IR
light can be emitted. The peptide does not absorb the red light, so the red light would nog be
harmful. (Scheme 1).
Scheme 1: Marked peptide
In my investigation, I created a synthesis route for creating this type of molecules. Using the
knowledge of a multicomponent reaction (MCR), a lot of different types of molecules can be
synthesized, using the same pathway. A multicomponent reaction is a reaction in which several
compounds can be added in sequence, without interrupting the reaction for isolating the
intermediate product. In scheme 2 an MCR is shown. The possibility of variation in the starting
materials, give us the opportunity to make a lot of different reaction, using the same synthetic
pathway.
Scheme 2: A multicomponent reaction