Abstract
Lipid droplets are highly associated with obesity, diabetes, inflammatory disorders, and cancer. A reliable two-photon dye for specific lipid droplets imaging in live cells and live tissues at ultralow concentration has rarely been reported. In this work, four new aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) based on the naphthalene core were designed and synthesized for specific two-photon lipid droplet staining. The new molecules, namely, NAP AIEgens, exhibit large Stokes shift (>110 nm), high solid-state fluorescence quantum yield (up to 30%), good two-photon absorption cross section (45–100 GM at 860 nm), high biocompatibility, and good photostability. They could specifically stain lipid droplets at ultralow concentration (50 nM) in a short time of 15 min. Such ultralow concentration is the lowest value for lipid droplets staining in live cells reported so far. In vitro and ex vivo two-photon imaging of lipid droplets in live cells and live mice liver tissues were successfully demonstrated. In ad...
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