Inventors:
Eric Todd Kool - Stanford CA, US
James N. Wilson - Coral Gables FL, US
Nan Dai - Middle Island NY, US
Assignee:
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University - Palo Alto CA
International Classification:
C07H 21/00, C07H 21/02, C07H 21/04, C07H 19/04, C12Q 1/68
Abstract:
Compositions and systems are provided for the high efficiency quenching small water-soluble oligomers, or oligofluors, of from about 1-10 kd in size, where the oligofluors comprise multiple excimeric or exciplex forming fluorophores arranged on a scaffold, which are efficiently quenched by a quencher entity linked to the oligomer through a cleavable moiety. Fluorophores of interest include, without limitation, aromatic fluorophores such as pyrenes, e. g. benzopyrene, perylene, pyrene, etc. In some embodiments the oligofluor/quencher combination provides for a Stern-Vollmer constant (K) of greater than about 10M, and may be greater than about 10M, greater than about 10M, or more. In some embodiments of the invention, the scaffold is a phosphodiester/glycoside backbone, e. g. an analog of a polynucleotide. The system of oligofluors and quenchers can be used in qualitative and quantitative screening and detection methods to detect any enzymatic, chemical or catalytic activity that can cleave the moiety between the quencher and scaffold.