Research and Education Faculty, Multidisciplinary Science Cluster, Interdisciplinary Science Unit, Kochi University, 2-5-1, Akebono-cho, Kochi-shi, Kochi 780-8520, Japan.
Laboratoire de Bioimagerie et Pathologies, UMR 7021 CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, 74 route du Rhin, 67401 Illkirch, France.
J Biochem. 2021 Oct 11;170(2):163-174. doi: 10.1093/jb/mvab078.
Solvatochromic dyes have emerged as a new class of fluorescent probes in the field of lipid membranes due to their ability to identify the lipid organization of biomembranes in live cells by changing the colour of their fluorescence. This type of solvatochromic function is useful for studying the heterogeneous features of biomembranes caused by the uneven distribution of lipids and cholesterols in live cells and related cellular processes. Therefore, a variety of advanced solvatochromic dyes have been rapidly developed over the last decade. To provide an overview of the works recently developed solvatochromic dyes have enabled, we herein present some solvatochromic dyes, with a particular focus on those based on pyrene and Nile red. As these dyes exhibit preferable photophysical properties in terms of fluorescence microscopy applications and unique distribution/localization in cellular compartments, some have already found applications in cell biological and biophysical studies. The goal of this review is to provide information to researchers who have never used solvatochromic dyes or who have not discovered applications of such dyes in biological studies.
溶剂变色染料在脂质膜领域已经成为一类新的荧光探针，因为它们能够通过改变荧光颜色来识别活细胞中生物膜的脂质组织。这种溶剂变色功能对于研究活细胞中由于脂质和胆固醇分布不均引起的生物膜的非均相特征以及相关的细胞过程非常有用。因此，在过去十年中，已经迅速开发出了多种先进的溶剂变色染料。为了概述最近开发的溶剂变色染料所带来的进展，我们在此介绍了一些溶剂变色染料，特别关注基于芘和尼罗红的染料。由于这些染料在荧光显微镜应用方面表现出更好的光物理性质，并且在细胞区室中有独特的分布/定位，因此一些已经在细胞生物学和生物物理学研究中得到了应用。本综述的目的是为从未使用过溶剂变色染料或尚未发现此类染料在生物学研究中有应用的研究人员提供信息。
