Magnusson Karin, Appelqvist Hanna, Cieślar-Pobuda Artur, Bäck Marcus, Kågedal Bertil, Jonasson Jon A, Los Marek J, Nilsson K Peter R
Division of Chemistry, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden.
Division of Cell Biology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden ; Institute of Automatic Control, Silesian University of Technology Gliwice, Poland.
Front Chem. 2015 Oct 7;3:58. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2015.00058. eCollection 2015.
Molecular tools for fluorescent imaging of cells and their components are vital for understanding the function and activity of cells. Here, we report an imidazole functionalized pentameric oligothiophene, p-HTIm, that can be utilized for fluorescent imaging of cells. p-HTIm fluorescence in normal cells appeared in a peripheral punctate pattern partially co-localized with lysosomes, whereas a one-sided perinuclear Golgi associated localization of the dye was observed in malignant cells. The uptake of p-HTIm was temperature dependent and the intracellular target was reached within 1 h after staining. The ability of p-HTIm to stain cells was reduced when the imidazole side chain was chemically altered, verifying that specific imidazole side-chain functionalities are necessary for achieving the observed cellular staining. Our findings confirm that properly functionalized oligothiophenes can be utilized as fluorescent tools for vital staining of cells and that the selectivity toward distinct intracellular targets are highly dependent on the side-chain functionalities along the conjugated thiophene backbone.
用于细胞及其组分荧光成像的分子工具对于理解细胞的功能和活性至关重要。在此，我们报告了一种咪唑功能化的五聚体寡聚噻吩p-HTIm，它可用于细胞的荧光成像。正常细胞中的p-HTIm荧光呈现外周点状模式，部分与溶酶体共定位，而在恶性细胞中观察到该染料单侧核周高尔基体相关定位。p-HTIm的摄取依赖于温度，染色后1小时内即可到达细胞内靶点。当咪唑侧链发生化学改变时，p-HTIm对细胞的染色能力降低，这证实了特定的咪唑侧链功能对于实现所观察到的细胞染色是必要的。我们的研究结果证实，功能化适当的寡聚噻吩可作为细胞活体染色的荧光工具，并且对不同细胞内靶点的选择性高度依赖于共轭噻吩主链上的侧链功能。
