Yet another caged glutamate?!

We recently (20 June 2007) published the synthesis and testing of a new caged glutamate compound: CDNI-Glu. This probe is based on our widely used MNI-Glu. In the paper 2 groups independently compared the relative efficacy of MNI and CDNI using UV and 2-photon uncaging. Both uncaging methods gave essentially the same results. CDNI is 4-5 times better than MNI. Several other groups have published syntheses of "better" caged glutamates over the past 3 years. In contrast to all these studies, we report direct comparison of the best commercially available caged compound (MNI) with our new one on the same cell. Importantly, we actually do 2-photon uncaging in brain slices, whereas other groups have only reported 2-photon cross sections in a cuvette.

4-Carboxymethoxy-5,7-Dinitroindolinyl-Glu: An Improved Caged Glutamate for Expeditious Ultraviolet and Two-Photon Photolysis in Brain Slices. J. Neurosci. (2007) 27:6601-6604.