Bioorthogonal Photocatalytic Decaging-Enabled Mitochondrial Proteomics

Spatiotemporally resolved dissection of subcellular proteome is crucial to our understanding of cellular functions in health and disease. We herein report a bioorthogonal and photocatalytic decaging-enabled proximity labeling strategy (CAT-Prox) for spatiotemporally resolved mitochondrial proteome profiling in living cells. Our systematic survey of the photocatalysts has led to the identification of Ir­(ppy)₂bpy as a bioorthogonal and mitochondria-targeting catalyst that allowed photocontrolled, rapid rescue of azidobenzyl-caged quinone methide as a highly reactive Michael acceptor for proximity-based protein labeling in mitochondria of live cells. Upon careful validation through in vitro labeling, mitochondria-targeting specificity, in situ catalytic activity as well as protein tagging, we applied CAT-Prox for mitochondria proteome profiling in living Hela cells as well as hard-to-transfect macrophage RAW264.7 cells with approximately 70% mitochondria specificity observed from up to 300 proteins enriched. Finally, CAT-Prox was further applied to the dynamic dissection of mitochondria proteome of macrophage cells upon lipopolysaccharide stimulation. By integrating photocatalytic decaging chemistry with proximity-based protein labeling, CAT-Prox offers a general, catalytic, and nongenetic alternative to the enzyme-based proximity labeling strategies for diverse live cell settings.