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Updated: Oct 28, 2025

Measuring Proliferation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells Using Click Chemistry
Published on: October 30, 2019
Cell-cell interactions via non-covalent click chemistry
Chad Plumet1, Achmet Said Mohamed1, Tanguy Vendeuvre2
1University of Poitiers, UMR CNRS 7285, Institut de Chimie des Milieux et Matériaux de Poitiers (IC2MP) rue Michel-Brunet, TSA 51106 86073 Poitiers Cedex 9 France sebastien.papot@univ-poitiers.fr.
Abstract:
Metabolic glycoengineering with unnatural sugars became a valuable tool for introducing recognition markers on the cell membranes via bioorthogonal chemistry. By using this strategy, we functionalized the surface of tumor and T cells using complementary artificial markers based on both β-cyclodextrins (β-CDs) and adamantyl trimers, respectively. Once tied on cell surfaces, the artificial markers induced cell-cell adhesion through non-covalent click chemistry. These unnatural interactions between A459 lung tumor cells and Jurkat T cells triggered the activation of natural killer (NK) cells thanks to the increased production of interleukin-2 (IL-2) in the vicinity of cancer cells, leading ultimately to their cytolysis. The ready-to-use surface markers designed in this study can be easily inserted on the membrane of a wide range of cells previously submitted to metabolic glycoengineering, thereby offering a simple way to investigate and manipulate intercellular interactions.
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