There is an urgent need for point-of-care tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic methods that are fast, inexpensive, and operationally simple. Here, we report on a bright solvatochromic dye trehalose conjugate that specifically detects Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in minutes. 3-Hydroxychromone (3HC) dyes, known for having high fluorescence quantum yields, exhibit shifts in fluorescence intensity in response to changes in environmental polarity. We synthesized two analogs of 3HC-trehalose conjugates (3HC-2-Tre and 3HC-3-Tre) and determined that 3HC-3-Tre has exceptionally favorable properties for Mtb detection. 3HC-3-Tre-labeled mycobacterial cells displayed a 10-fold increase in fluorescence intensity compared to our previous reports on the dye 4,4-N,N-dimethylaminonapthalimide (DMN-Tre). Excitingly, we detected fluorescent Mtb cells within 10 min of probe treatment. Thus, 3HC-3-Tre permits rapid visualization of mycobacteria that ultimately could empower improved Mtb detection at the point-of-care in low-resource settings.

中文翻译：

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对结核分枝杆菌进行即时检测：更亮的溶剂变色探针可在数分钟内检测到分枝杆菌

迫切需要快速、廉价且操作简单的床旁结核病 (TB) 诊断方法。在这里，我们报告了一种明亮的溶剂化显色染料海藻糖缀合物，可在几分钟内特异性检测结核分枝杆菌(Mtb)。以具有高荧光量子产率而闻名的 3-羟基色酮 (3HC) 染料表现出荧光强度的变化以响应环境极性的变化。我们合成了 3HC-海藻糖缀合物的两种类似物（3HC-2-Tre 和 3HC-3-Tre），并确定 3HC-3-Tre 对 Mtb 检测具有非常有利的特性。与我们之前关于染料 4,4- N,N 的报告相比，3HC-3-Tre 标记的分枝杆菌细胞的荧光强度增加了 10 倍-二甲氨基萘甲酰亚胺 (DMN-Tre)。令人兴奋的是，我们在探针处理的 10 分钟内检测到荧光 Mtb 细胞。因此，3HC-3-Tre 允许分枝杆菌的快速可视化，最终可以在资源匮乏的环境中提高医疗点的 Mtb 检测。