硝基还原酶是一类依赖于黄素单核苷酸或黄素腺嘌呤二核苷酸的细胞质酶,广泛存在于细菌中。肿瘤细胞缺氧通常也可导致胞内硝基还原酶增加。在电子供体如还原型烟酰胺腺嘌呤二核苷酸的存在下,硝基还原酶可以将芳香族硝基化合物有效还原为相应的氨基化合物。这种还原行为不仅用于药物的激活和芳香族硝基化合物的生物降解,同时也可用来设计含硝基的荧光探针对实体瘤细胞的缺氧状况进行检测。本文简要评述近年来硝基还原酶荧光探针的研究进展,包括基于多米诺分解反应以及荧光体上硝基直接还原为氨的反应而发展的荧光探针。
The nitroreductase family comprises a group of flavin mononucleotide or flavin adenine dinucleotide dependent enzymes.These enzymes can be found in bacterial species and can effectively reduce nitroaromatic compounds to the corresponding amines in the presence of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate as an electron donor.This behavior has been widely used not only in eliminating pervasive nitroaromatic pollutants and activating nitrofuran antibiotics,but also in developing new fluorescent probes for the detection of nitroreductase and hypoxia in some biosystems such as tumor cells.In this paper,we briefly reviewed the recent advances in nitroreductase fluorescent probes and their analytical applications.Two major design strategies for nitroreductase probes have been summarized,which are based on the domino reaction and direct reduction of nitro groups on the fluorochromes to the corresponding amino groups.