Department of Chemistry, University College London , London WC1H 0AJ, U.K.
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huangshan College, Huangshan University , Huangshan 245041, P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Sep 20;9(37):31424-31432. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b08068. Epub 2017 Sep 8.
A two-photon fluorescent probe (J1) that selectively stains intracellular nucleolar RNA was screened from three water-soluble terpyridine derivatives (J1-J3) with quaternary ammonium groups. The photophysical properties of J1-J3 were systemically investigated both experimentally and theoretically, revealing that J1-J3 possess large Stokes shifts and the two-photon absorption action cross sections range from 38 to 97 GM in the near-infrared region. This indicates that J1 could specifically stain nucleoli by targeting the nucleolar rRNA from the recognition experiments in vitro, the two-photon imaging experiments, and the stimulated emission depletion in vivo. The mechanism of action in which J1 binds to the nucleolar rRNA was researched via both experiments and molecular modeling. The high binding selectivity of J1 to nucleolar RNA over cytosolic RNA made this probe a potential candidate to visualize rRNA probe in the living cells.
从三个带有季铵基团的水溶性三联吡啶衍生物（J1-J3）中筛选出一种能够选择性染色细胞内核仁 RNA 的双光子荧光探针（J1）。通过实验和理论系统地研究了 J1-J3 的光物理性质，结果表明 J1-J3 具有较大的斯托克斯位移，双光子吸收作用截面在近红外区域的范围从 38 到 97 GM。这表明 J1 可以通过体外识别实验、双光子成像实验以及体内受激发射损耗来特异性地靶向核仁 rRNA 来特异性地染色核仁。通过实验和分子建模研究了 J1 与核仁 rRNA 结合的作用机制。J1 与核仁 RNA 的高结合选择性高于细胞质 RNA，这使得该探针成为在活细胞中可视化 rRNA 探针的潜在候选物。
