An endoplasmic reticulum-targeting fluorescent probe for the imaging of hypochlorous acid in living cells and zebrafishes

Abstract

Hypochlorous acid (HClO) plays critical biological roles in living systems, and abnormal accumulation of HClO could cause oxidative stress and lead to tissue damage and a range of diseases. Herein, we present an endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-targeting fluorescent probe (ER-NTE) for the detection of HClO in live cells and zebrafishes. The probe ER-NTE employed p-toluenesulfonamide as the ER-specific group, and used N,N-dimethylthiocarbamate as the recognition site for HClO. In response to HClO, the probe ER-NTE provided significant turn-on fluorescence signal (60-fold enhancement) within 2 min. Biological imaging experiments suggested that ER-NTE could specifically image exogenous and endogenous HClO in ER of living cells, and also could be applied for the detection of HClO in zebrafishes.