A Proximity-Induced Fluorogenic Reaction Triggered by Antibody-Antigen Interactions with Adjacent Epitopes

Proximity-induced chemical reactions are site-specific and rapid by taking advantage of their high affinity and highly selective interactions with the template. However, reactions induced solely by antibody-antigen interactions have not been developed. Herein, we propose a biepitopic antigen-templated chemical reaction (BATER) as a novel template reaction. In BATER, reactive functional groups are conjugated to two antibodies that interact with two epitopes of the same antigen to accelerate the reaction. We developed a method for visualizing the progress of BATER using fluorogenic click chemistry for optimal antibody selection and linker design. The reaction is accelerated in the presence of a specific antigen in a linker length-dependent manner. The choice of the antibody epitope is important for a rapid reaction. This design will lead to various applications of BATER in living systems.