GFP-based red-emissive fluorescent probes for dual imaging of β-amyloid plaques and mitochondrial viscosity

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with incurable neurodegenerative damage, has attracted growing interest in exploration of better AD biomarkers in its early diagnosis. Among various biomarkers, amyloid-β (Aβ) aggregates and mitochondrial viscosity are closely related to AD and their dual imaging might provide a potential and feasible strategy. In this work, five GFP-based red-emissive fluorescent probes were rationally designed and synthesized for selective detection of β-amyloid plaques and viscosity, among which C25e exhibited superior properties and could successfully image β-amyloid plaques and mitochondrial viscosity with different fluorescence wavelength signals “turn-on” at around 624 and 640 nm, respectively. Moreover, the staining of brain sections from a transgenic AD mouse showed that probe C25e showed higher selectivity and signal-to-noise ratio towards Aβ plaques than commercially-available Thio-S. In addition, the probe C25e was, for the first time, employed for monitoring amyloid-β induced mitochondrial viscosity changes. Therefore, this GFP-based red-emissive fluorescent probe C25e could serve as a dual-functional tool for imaging β-amyloid plaques and mitochondrial viscosity, which might provide a unique strategy for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.