Streptavidin reduces oxygen quenching of biotinylated ruthenium(II) and palladium(II) complexes.

Transition metal complexes such as biotinylated ruthenium(II) tris(bipyridyl) and palladium(II) porphyrin show an increase in luminescence intensity and lifetime upon binding to streptavidin in aqueous solution. Here we show that this increase of luminescence lifetime and intensity are caused by the shielding of the transition metal complexes from dissolved oxygen through streptavidin rather than by hydrophobicity effects as recently claimed.