An AIEgen-based fluorescent probe for highly selective and specific imaging of lipid droplets in L02 and HepG2 cells

Lipid droplets (LDs), as dynamic organelles, are associated with physiologically and pathologically metabolic processes. Especially, in human liver cancer cells (HepG2 cells) the lipid metabolism shows significant difference by comparing with the human normal liver cell (L02 cells). In this work, a new highly selective and specific fluorescent probe TPA-SD for the detection of LDs has been rationally designed and easily prepared from triphenylamine and salicylaldehyde, which possesses aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and excited state intramolecular proton transfer characteristics (ESIPT). Ideal probes for LDs imaging require high concentration accumulation of fluorophores in LDs and lack of self-quenching in the aggregated state, so the AIE property is necessary. TPA-SD can successfully and specifically accumulate in LDs, thus facilitating clearly distinguishing L02 cells from HepG2 cells according to obvious difference in the number of dot-shaped LDs marked by TPA-SD. The dot-shaped LDs in the HepG2 cells is found to be obviously more than that in the L02 cells. Moreover, the spatial distribution of LDs could be identified by TPA-SD. The results indicate TPA-SD possesses great potential in imaging and diagnosis of LDs-related diseases.