A "Distorted‐BODIPY"‐Based Fluorescent Probe for Imaging of Cellular Viscosity in Live Cells1. Issue 16 (5th March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhu, Hao; Fan, Jiangli; Li, Miao; Cao, Jianfang; Wang, Jingyun; Peng, Xiaojun
• Is Part Of: Chemistry. Volume 20:Issue 16(2014)
• Page Start: 4691
• Page End: 4696
• Publication Date: 2014-03-05
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540
• DOI: 10.1002/chem.201304296
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0947-6539

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" xml:lang="en"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Cellular viscosity is a critical factor in governing diffusion‐mediated cellular processes and is linked to a number of diseases and pathologies. Fluorescent molecular rotors (FMRs) have recently been developed to determine viscosity in solutions or biological fluid. Herein, we report a "distorted‐BODIPY"‐based probe <bold>BV‐1</bold> for cellular viscosity, which is different from the conventional "pure rotors". In <bold>BV‐1</bold>, the internal steric hindrance between the <italic>meso</italic>‐CHO group and the 1, 7‐dimethyl group forced the boron–dipyrrin framework to be distorted, which mainly caused nonradiative deactivation in low‐viscosity environment. <bold>BV‐1</bold> gave high sensitivity (<italic>x</italic>=0.62) together with stringent selectivity to viscosity, thus enabling viscosity mapping in live cells. Significantly, the increase of cytoplasmic viscosity during apoptosis was observed by <bold>BV‐1</bold> in real time.</p> </abstract>