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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Luminophore Formation in Various Conformations of Bovine Serum Albumin by Binding of GoldIII
Published on: August 31, 2018
Protein labelling and albumin binding characteristics of the near-IR Cy7 fluorophore, QuatCy
Sopida Thavornpradit1, Syed Muhammad Usama1, Chen-Ming Lin1
1Department of Chemistry, Texas A & M University, Box 30012, College Station, TX 77842, USA. burgess@tamu.edu.
Free cysteine residues react with QuatCy 1, by simply mixing the protein and dye in aqueous buffer at 37 °C. Another dye, MHI-148, can be used for a similar labelling protocol, but QuatCy reacts faster with all proteins studied, except albumin; it emerges here that this is because MHI-148 instantly forms of a non-covalent complex with albumin, but QuatCy does not. Labelling with QuatCy has advantages insofar as it is over five times brighter, and much more photostable, than MHI-148, and combination labelling with this dye pair will allow multiplexing in the near-IR region.
Free cysteine residues react with QuatCy 1, by simply mixing the protein and dye in aqueous buffer at 37 °C. Another dye, MHI-148, can be used for a similar labelling protocol, but QuatCy reacts faster with all proteins studied, except albumin; it emerges here that this is because MHI-148 instantly forms of a non-covalent complex with albumin, but QuatCy does not. Labelling with QuatCy has advantages insofar as it is over five times brighter, and much more photostable, than MHI-148, and combination labelling with this dye pair will allow multiplexing in the near-IR region.
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