Issue 32, 2016

A photostable AIE fluorogen for lysosome-targetable imaging of living cells

Abstract

Disruptive variation in intracellular pH and its fluctuations in lysosomes have a close relationship with the more acidic lysosome lumen of cancer cells (pH 4.5–5.5). Traditional lysosome-targeted probes, such as LysoTracker Green DND-26 (LTG) and LysoTracker Red DND-99 (LTR), can fluoresce when the weak base units in the probes are removed after donating protons under the photoinduced electron-transfer (PET) effect. However they can only be used at low concentration to avoid the aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect and are also easily photobleached under continuous excitation irradiation, displaying low photostability. Herein, a tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-based lysosome-targetable fluorescence probe, TPE-CA, was synthesized, which could selectively monitor the pH change in subcellular organelles and exhibited a strong blue emission under an acidic condition with pH = 4. Using crystallographic, NMR and HRMS analyses, the mechanism regarding the pH dependent fluorescent performance of TPE-CA has been illustrated at the molecular level. In addition, experimental results show that TPE-CA is cell-permeable and biocompatible with HeLa, MCF-7 and HLF cells. The punctate fluorescent spots in the co-staining experiment of TPE-CA with LTG and LTR proves that the blue fluorescence spots of TPE-CA are indeed localized in the most acidic lysosome organelles. In particular, TPE-CA also inherits the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature of TPE, showing better photostability under continuous UV illumination compared with the commercial dyes (LTG and LTR). These results show that TPE-CA would be beneficial for understanding the acid environment of lysosomes in related cells and organs with potential biological significance.

Graphical abstract: A photostable AIE fluorogen for lysosome-targetable imaging of living cells

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 May 2016
Accepted
12 Jul 2016
First published
12 Jul 2016

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2016,4, 5412-5417

A photostable AIE fluorogen for lysosome-targetable imaging of living cells

X. Lou, M. Zhang, Z. Zhao, X. Min, A. Hakeem, F. Huang, P. Gao, F. Xia and B. Z. Tang, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2016, 4, 5412 DOI: 10.1039/C6TB01293K

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