With the development of bioconjugation technology, there are plenty of options to covalently ligating an artificial metal cofactor onto a protein: i) cysteine residue based chemistry like: Cys-meleimide, Cys-α-haloketone, Cys-benzylhalide chemistry and disulfide formation, ii) post-translational bioorthogonal modification based on Amber suppression (e.g., Click chemistry) and iii) enzyme active site modification (e.g., covalent bond formation between lipase and lipase inhibitor).
The video shows an example using reaction between cysteine residue and α-haloketone to introduce a phenanthroline ligand into an adipocyte lipid binding protein. In this context, the ArM can selectively hydrolyze certain racemic esters.