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Real‐Time Imaging of Cell Behaviors in Living Organisms by a Mitochondria‐Targeting AIE Fluorogen
Author(s) -
Situ Bo,
Chen Sijie,
Zhao Engui,
Leung Chris Wai Tung,
Chen Yilong,
Hong Yuning,
Lam Jacky Wing Yip,
Wen Zilong,
Liu Wei,
Zhang Wenqing,
Zheng Lei,
Tang Ben Zhong
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201602865
Subject(s) - multicellular organism , mitochondrion , live cell imaging , in vivo , biophysics , cell , zebrafish , materials science , nanotechnology , aggregation induced emission , biocompatible material , in vitro , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , fluorescence , biomedical engineering , biochemistry , gene , medicine , physics , quantum mechanics
Visualizing behaviors of cell populations within living multicellular organisms in real time is of great value to life science but challenging due to the lack of ideal probes. In this work, a biocompatible fluorogen, azide‐functionalized tetraphenylethene pyridinium (TPE‐PyN 3 ), is reported for noninvasive imaging and sensing within living systems. TPE‐PyN 3 exhibits unique aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) attributes and high affinity to mitochondria, enabling it to achieve specific mitochondrial imaging and long‐term cellular observing with excellent photostability both in vitro and in vivo. The high membrane penetrability of TPE‐PyN 3 allows all of the cells within the living zebrafish embryos to be morphologically visualized and reconstructed in 3D. Moreover, TPE‐PyN 3 is capable of indicating cell apoptosis because of its sensitivity to the change of mitochondrial membrane potential. The findings presented here provide a simple and noninvasive tool for studying behaviors of cell populations in vivo for the first time by a small‐molecule AIE probe.