Cai Yu-Ting, Liu Yan-Chao, Gu Ying-Ying, Zhu Ya-Qi, Liu Yong-Hong, Chen Jing, Yang Yuan, Liu Ming-Xuan
Institute of Translational Medicine, Medical College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225001 Jiangsu, China.
School of Pharmacy, Nantong University, Nantong 226001, Jiangsu, China.
Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2025 Feb 15;327:125325. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2024.125325. Epub 2024 Oct 23.
Lipid droplets (LDs) as spherical dynamic subcellular organelles, play an important role in various cellular functions such as protein degradation, lipid metabolism, energy storage, signal transduction, and membrane formation. Abnormal function of LDs will lead to a series of diseases and hence monitoring the status of LDs is particularly important. In this study, we synthesized a water-insoluble red fluorescent emitting small molecule fluorescent probe (TPE-TCF), which exhibited aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties and enabled highly selective real-time imaging of LDs (Pearson's R value was 0.90). More interestingly, this probe was able to track the dynamic processes of LDs in living cells, including lipophagy, and monitor fatty liver disease in mice. Therefore, TPE-TCF with red fluorescence emission, good biocompatibility, large Stokes shift, AIE properties, LDs imaging, and fatty liver recognition capabilities can be practically used in more LDs-related diseases.
脂滴（LDs）作为球形动态亚细胞器，在蛋白质降解、脂质代谢、能量储存、信号转导和膜形成等各种细胞功能中发挥着重要作用。脂滴功能异常会导致一系列疾病，因此监测脂滴状态尤为重要。在本研究中，我们合成了一种水不溶性红色荧光小分子荧光探针（TPE-TCF），它具有聚集诱导发光（AIE）特性，能够对脂滴进行高选择性实时成像（皮尔逊相关系数R值为0.90）。更有趣的是，该探针能够追踪活细胞中脂滴的动态过程，包括脂质自噬，并监测小鼠的脂肪肝疾病。因此，具有红色荧光发射、良好生物相容性、大斯托克斯位移、AIE特性、脂滴成像和脂肪肝识别能力的TPE-TCF可实际应用于更多与脂滴相关的疾病。
