Structure Rigidification Promoted Ultrabright Solvatochromic Fluorescent Probes for Super-Resolution Imaging of Cytosolic and Nuclear Lipid Droplets

Mingyue Cao, Ting Zhu, Mengying Zhao, Fanda Meng, Zhiqiang Liu*, Jianguo Wang, Guangle Niu*, Xiaoqiang Yu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Lipid droplets (LDs) containing cytosolic and nuclear LDs have recently received increasing attention because of their diverse biological roles in living systems. However, developing fluorescent probes for super-resolution visualization of these subcellular LDs still remains challenging due to insufficient fluorescence brightness and poor nuclear membrane permeability. Herein, we rationally synthesized a series of ultrabright solvatochromic fluorescent probes based on benzoboranils (BBAs) for LD-specific super-resolution imaging using structured illumination microscopy (SIM). The rigidly structured probes exhibit ultrahigh fluorescence quantum yields of up to 99.9% in low-polar solvents. They also show more significant fluorescence enhancements in lipid environments than commercial LD probes. Owing to these excellent merits, our lipophilic fluorescent probes can specifically light up subcellular LDs at ultralow concentrations down to 10 nM. Further use of BBA-CF3 for super-resolution SIM imaging of cytosolic and nuclear LDs and their fusion process was successfully achieved. The unprecedented spatial resolution for nuclear LDs with an FWHM value of 142 nm was also acquired. Collectively, our ultrabright fluorescent probes hold tremendous potential to unveil the mysterious roles of cytosolic and nuclear LDs in biological research using SIM.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10676-10684
Number of pages9
JournalAnalytical Chemistry
Volume94
Issue number30
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Aug 2022
Externally publishedYes

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Cao, M., Zhu, T., Zhao, M., Meng, F., Liu, Z., Wang, J., Niu, G., & Yu, X. (2022). Structure Rigidification Promoted Ultrabright Solvatochromic Fluorescent Probes for Super-Resolution Imaging of Cytosolic and Nuclear Lipid Droplets. Analytical Chemistry, 94(30), 10676-10684. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.2c00964