Phosphorescent iridium(iii) complexes capable of imaging and distinguishing between exogenous and endogenous analytes in living cells.

Many luminescent probes have been developed for intracellular imaging and sensing. During cellular luminescence sensing, it is difficult to distinguish species generated inside cells from those internalized from extracellular environments since they are chemically the same and lead to the same luminescence response of the probes. Considering that endogenous species usually give more information about the physiological and pathological parameters of the cells while internalized species often reflect the extracellular environmental conditions, we herein reported a series of cyclometalated iridium(iii) complexes as phosphorescent probes that are partially retained in the cell membrane during their cellular uptake. The utilization of the probes for sensing and distinguishing between exogenous and endogenous analytes has been demonstrated using hypoxia and hypochlorite as two examples of target analytes. The endogenous analytes lead to the luminescence response of the intracellular probes while the exogenous analytes are reported by the probes retained in the cell membrane during their internalization.