Department of Ultrasound Medicine, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, China; Hubei Province Clinical Research Center for Medical Imaging, Wuhan, 430022, China; Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Wuhan, 430022, China.
Institute for Advanced Simulations (IAS)-5/Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (INM)-9, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52428, Jülich, Germany.
Talanta. 2021 Dec 1;235:122659. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2021.122659. Epub 2021 Jul 14.
Sensitive detection of β-galactosidase (β-gal) is of great significance for early diagnosis of ovarian cancer. Fluorescent probes for detecting β-gal have received great interest due to the non-invasiveness, excellent sensitivity, high temporal, and superior spatial resolution. However, most reported fluorescent sensors for β-gal suffer from aggregation caused quenching effect when accumulated, and cannot discriminate β-gal from other species, especially, Escherichia coliβ-gal. Herein, we report the first aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active fluorescent probe HBTTPAG, which achieves species-selective detection of β-gal. Probe HBTTPAG can discriminate Aspergillus oryzae β-gal from Escherichia coliβ-gal, with high sensitivity (detection limit of 3.7 × 10-3 UmL-1), superior selectivity and low cytotoxicity. Furthermore, HBTTPAG is utilized to visualize endogenous β-gal in lysosomes of SKOV-3 cells, as well as to detect β-gal activity in ovarian cancer tissues. Notably, owing to the AIE-active, HBTTPAG realizes long-term (12 h) tracking β-gal in ovarian cancer cells. This work provides a promising method for species-selective detection of β-gal in preclinical.
β-半乳糖苷酶（β-gal）的灵敏检测对卵巢癌的早期诊断具有重要意义。由于具有非侵入性、优异的灵敏度、高时间和优越的空间分辨率，用于检测β-gal 的荧光探针受到了极大的关注。然而，大多数报道的用于β-gal 的荧光传感器在积累时会受到聚集诱导猝灭（AIE）效应的影响，并且不能区分β-gal 与其他物质，尤其是大肠杆菌β-gal。本文报道了第一个聚集诱导发射（AIE）活性荧光探针 HBTTPAG，它实现了对β-gal 的选择性检测。探针 HBTTPAG 可以区分米曲霉β-gal 和大肠杆菌β-gal，具有高灵敏度（检测限为 3.7×10-3 UmL-1）、优异的选择性和低细胞毒性。此外，HBTTPAG 用于可视化 SKOV-3 细胞溶酶体中的内源性β-gal ，以及检测卵巢癌组织中的β-gal 活性。值得注意的是，由于具有 AIE 活性，HBTTPAG 实现了在卵巢癌细胞中对β-gal 的长期（12 h）跟踪。这项工作为临床前β-gal 的选择性检测提供了一种很有前途的方法。
