Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, 382055, India.
Department of Biological Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, 382055, India.
Org Biomol Chem. 2022 Sep 14;20(35):7047-7055. doi: 10.1039/d2ob00995a.
The mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are highly dynamic subcellular structures essential for several biological functions. The development of non-toxic, wash-free fluorophores to visualize these structures inside cells aid in understanding their localization and dynamics in diverse cellular processes. In this paper, we report the synthesis and characterization of lutidine-based cationic fluorophores bearing push-pull substituents exhibiting emission in green and red wavelength regions and their subcellular localization in living cells. The confocal imaging of the molecules in a cellular domain reveals the robust localization of three molecules (2, 4 and 5) in the mitochondria and two molecules with polyfluorophenyl substituents (6 and 7) in the ER. At the same time, the other two molecules (1 and 3) showed non-specific imaging. These molecules can also be used to sense the altered viscosity of the stressed ER and investigate its dynamics.
线粒体和内质网（ER）是高度动态的亚细胞结构，对多种生物学功能至关重要。开发无毒、无洗涤的荧光染料来可视化细胞内的这些结构，有助于理解它们在不同细胞过程中的定位和动态。在本文中，我们报告了基于六氢吡啶的带有推拉取代基的阳离子荧光染料的合成和表征，这些染料在绿光和红光波长区域具有发射，并且可以在活细胞中进行亚细胞定位。在细胞区域中对分子的共焦成像显示，三种分子（2、4 和 5）在线粒体中具有很强的定位，两种带有多氟代苯基取代基的分子（6 和 7）在 ER 中具有很强的定位。同时，另外两种分子（1 和 3）显示出非特异性成像。这些分子还可用于检测应激 ER 的粘度变化并研究其动力学。
