Development and Applications of Bioorthogonal Cleavage Reactions

Bioorthogonal reactions enable us to study and manipulate biological processes under living conditions. As widely used and powerful tools, biorthogonal reactions are largely defined as "ligation reactions" that are used for labeling, tracing and capturing biomolecules. Recently, an emerging collection of biorthogonal "bond-cleavage reactions" have been developed and applied for biological studies, especially in releasing, activating and manipulating biomolecules. In this review, we will first summarize the characteristics and applications of these biorthogonal cleavage reactions. We will then focus on introducing diverse applications of biorthogonal cleavage reactions, including activation of prodrugs, rescue of intracellular protein activity, engineering of cell surface, among other interesting applications. Finally, the outlook of future development and applications of biorthogonal cleavage reactions will be discussed.