Development of a bioorthogonal and highly efficient conjugation method for quantum dots using tetrazine-norbornene cycloaddition.

We present a bioorthogonal and modular conjugation method for efficient coupling of organic dyes and biomolecules to quantum dots (QDs) using a norbornene-tetrazine cycloaddition. The use of noncoordinating functional groups combined with the rapid rate of the cycloaddition leads to highly efficient conjugation. We have applied this method to the in situ targeting of norbornene-coated QDs to live cancer cells labeled with tetrazine-modified proteins.