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A deep-red emission fluorescent probe with long wavelength absorption for viscosity detection and live cell imaging

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Abstract

Intracellular viscosity is closely related to a series of biological processes and could be a biomarker for various diseases. Herein, we reported a deep-red emission viscosity probe ACI, which showed a turn-on fluorescence effect with excellent selectivity encountering high viscous medium. To assure the practical biological application, ACI demonstrated not only a long wavelength emission at 634 nm but also a long wavelength excitation at 566 nm, which were crucial to afford deeper penetration depth and higher sensitivity in bioimaging. The photophysical properties and viscosity recognition mechanism of the probe were carefully discussed here. Theoretical calculations furtherly confirmed that high viscous medium could inhibit the twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) process of the probe which quenched the fluorescence in low viscous media, and restore the emission. More importantly, it was successfully applied to visualize the viscosity in living cells.

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Acknowledgments

The DFT calculations in this paper have been done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of Wuhan University. The authors would like to thank Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) for the support of cell imaging.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51703171, 51873160), and Science Foundation of Wuhan Institute of Technology (No. K201754).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, 430205, Hubei, China

    Li Chen, Yangzhen Feng, Yecheng Dang & Dugang Chen

  2. College of Chemistry and Molecular Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Cheng Zhong

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  1. Li Chen
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  2. Yangzhen Feng
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  3. Yecheng Dang
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  4. Cheng Zhong
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  5. Dugang Chen
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Correspondence to Cheng Zhong or Dugang Chen.

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Chen, L., Feng, Y., Dang, Y. et al. A deep-red emission fluorescent probe with long wavelength absorption for viscosity detection and live cell imaging. Anal Bioanal Chem 412, 7819–7826 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02911-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02911-2

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