Bioinspired Thiophosphorodichloridate Reagents for Chemoselective Histidine Bioconjugation.

Site-selective bioconjugation to native protein residues is a powerful tool for protein functionalization， with cysteine and lysine side chains being the most common points for attachment owing to their high nucleophilicity. We now report a strategy for histidine modification using thiophosphorodichloridate reagents that mimic post-translational histidine phosphorylation， enabling fast and selective labeling of protein histidines under mild conditions where various payloads can be introduced via copper-assisted alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC) chemistry. We establish that these reagents are particularly effective at covalent modification of His-tags， which are common motifs to facilitate protein purification， as illustrated by selective attachment of polyarginine cargoes to enhance the uptake of proteins into living cells. This work provides a starting point for probing and enhancing protein function using histidine-directed chemistry.