State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, P. R. China.
Chem Asian J. 2023 Nov 2;18(21):e202300701. doi: 10.1002/asia.202300701. Epub 2023 Oct 5.
Near-Infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging with the advantages of deep tissue penetration and minimum background, has been widely employed and developed in the study of biological applications. However, small Stokes shifts, difficulty in optical tuning, and pH sensitivity are still the major limitations faced by current NIR dyes. To solve these problems, we rationally designed a pH insensitive amino-tunable NIR oxazine fluorophore DQF-NH , which exhibited large Stokes shift (125 nm) accompanied with NIR excitation/emission due to the introduction an asymmetrical alternating vibronic feature. By benefiting from the excellent photophysical properties of DQF-NH , we have successfully constructed the probe DQF-NH -LAP with the ability to detect endogenous LAP. Bioimaging assays demonstrated that DQF-NH -LAP can not only effectively detect LAP in living cells, but also was successfully applied to image tumor tissue in vivo. We anticipate that the functionalizable dye DQF-NH may be a potential new NIR dye platform with an optically tunable group for the development of future desirable probes for bioimaging.
近红外（NIR）荧光成像是一种具有组织穿透深度深和背景最小化等优点的技术，已被广泛应用和发展于生物应用研究中。然而，小斯托克斯位移、光学调谐困难和 pH 敏感性仍然是当前近红外染料面临的主要限制。为了解决这些问题，我们合理设计了一种 pH 不敏感的可氨基调谐的 NIR 恶嗪类荧光团 DQF-NH ，由于引入了不对称的交替振子特征，它表现出大的斯托克斯位移（125nm），并伴随着近红外激发/发射。由于 DQF-NH 的优异光物理性质，我们成功构建了具有检测内源性 LAP 能力的探针 DQF-NH-LAP。生物成像实验表明，DQF-NH-LAP 不仅可以有效地在活细胞中检测 LAP，还成功地应用于体内肿瘤组织的成像。我们预计，功能化染料 DQF-NH 可能是一种具有可调谐光学基团的潜在新型近红外染料平台，可用于开发未来用于生物成像的理想探针。
