Abstract
Intracellular viscosity is a fundamental physical parameter that indicates the functioning of cells. In this work, we developed a simple boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY)-based probe, BTV, for cellular mitochondria viscosity imaging by coupling a simple BODIPY rotor with a mitochondria-targeting unit. The BTV exhibited a significant fluorescence intensity enhancement of more than 100-fold as the solvent viscosity increased. Also, the probe showed a direct linear relationship between the fluorescence lifetime and the media viscosity, which makes it possible to trace the change of the medium viscosity. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that BTV could achieve practical applicability in the monitoring of mitochondrial viscosity changes in live cells through fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM).
Highlights
Intracellular viscosity has an important influence on transportation as well as the interaction of biomolecules and chemical signals between biomacromolecules [1,2,3]
Most fluorescent molecular rotors (FMRs) based on a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) mechanism, in which the non-radiative decay of an excited state can be altered by the surrounding viscosity, have been developed for their rapid response and high spatial resolution [1,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) was introduced to intracellular viscosity sensor development to remove the influence of concentration-related artifacts [22,23]
Summary
Intracellular viscosity has an important influence on transportation as well as the interaction of biomolecules and chemical signals between biomacromolecules [1,2,3]. Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) was introduced to intracellular viscosity sensor development to remove the influence of concentration-related artifacts [22,23] Up to now, these designs have often involved a limited number of FMRs or multistep synthetic protocols, which makes them inconvenient to acquire or inappropriate for further improvement. These designs have often involved a limited number of FMRs or multistep synthetic protocols, which makes them inconvenient to acquire or inappropriate for further improvement Most of these probes showed non-specific intracellular distribution, which makes them difficult to use for the mapping of the change of viscosities. The that by increasing the viscosity ofincreasing the solvent,the theviscosity fluorescence this dark BODIPY dye was experimental data showed that by of theintensity solvent,ofthe fluorescence intensity enhanced than 100-fold) and the(more quantum changed.
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