Front Cover: Structure‐Activity Studies of Nitroreductase‐Responsive Near‐Infrared Heptamethine Cyanine Fluorescent Probes (Eur. J. Org. Chem. 23/2022)

Abstract

The Front Cover illustrates the action of a cyanine-based fluorescent probe inside a hypoxic A549 cell. Nitroreductase enzyme, a well-known biomarker of hypoxia, transforms a carboxylic ester group on the central heptamethine chain through a self-immolative fragmentation mechanism into a brightly fluorescent carboxylate group, resulting in a “turn on” fluorescent response. The cell elements were provided by Reactome.org under the CC BY 4.0 license. More information can be found in the Research Article by P. Štacko, B. D. Smith et al.