Stress response decay with aging visualized using a dual-channel logic-based fluorescent probe

Abstract

Diagnosing aging for preventative intervention generally relies on the tracking of aging biomarkers in the resting state. However, the static marker levels are insufficient to fully evaluate aging, particularly given that the stress response capacity (SRC) decay is currently viewed as a critical feature of aging. Therefore, we have developed a dual-channel fluorescent probe ROKS capable of the logic-based visualization of thiophenol (stressor) and HOCl (thiophenol-activated stress response product) in vivo, which provides a new strategy from the time dimension to precisely assess the SRC of individuals under stress using the dual-channel fluorescence ratio. Using ROKS we observed that the SRC of live cells decayed with senescence, and that a higher SRC was found for young vs. aged Caenorhabditis elegans. As such, our study offers a promising strategy for the fluorescence-guided diagnosis of aging and paves the way for accurate evaluation of the efficacy of anti-aging drugs.