State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals , Dalian University of Technology , Dalian 116024 , China.
Chemical Analysis and Research Center , Dalian University of Technology , Dalian 116024 , China.
J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Sep 18;141(37):14491-14495. doi: 10.1021/jacs.9b04893. Epub 2019 Sep 9.
Insufficient brightness of fluorophores poses a major bottleneck for the advancement of super-resolution microscopes. Despite being widely used, many rhodamine dyes exhibit sub-optimal brightness due to the formation of twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) upon photoexcitation. Herein, we have developed a new class of quaternary piperazine-substituted rhodamines with outstanding quantum yields (Φ = 0.93) and superior brightness (ε × Φ = 8.1 × 10 L·mol·cm), by utilizing the electronic inductive effect to prevent TICT. We have also successfully deployed these rhodamines in the super-resolution imaging of the microtubules of fixed cells and of the cell membrane and lysosomes of live cells. Finally, we demonstrated that this strategy was generalizable to other families of fluorophores, resulting in substantially increased quantum yields.
荧光团的亮度不足是超分辨率显微镜发展的主要瓶颈。尽管吖啶染料被广泛应用，但由于光激发时形成扭曲的分子内电荷转移（TICT），许多吖啶染料的亮度不理想。在此，我们通过利用电子诱导效应来防止 TICT，开发了一类具有出色量子产率（Φ = 0.93）和超高亮度（ε × Φ = 8.1 × 10 L·mol·cm）的新型季铵盐取代的吖啶染料。我们还成功地将这些吖啶染料应用于固定细胞的微管、活细胞的细胞膜和溶酶体的超分辨率成像。最后，我们证明了该策略可推广到其他荧光团家族，从而大大提高了量子产率。
