De Novo Designed Self-Assembling Rhodamine Probe for Real-Time, Long-Term and Quantitative Live-Cell Nanoscopy

Long-term tracking of lysosomal dynamics with highly stable fluorescent probe

Monitoring lysosomal dynamics in real-time, especially in vivo, poses significant challenges due to the complex and dynamic nature of cellular environments. It is extremely important to construct fluorescent probes with high stability for imaging lysosomes to minimize interference from other cellular components, in order to ensure prolonged imaging. A fluorescent probe (PDB) has been proposed for targeting lysosomes, which was less affected to changes in the cellular microenvironment (such as pH, viscosity and polarity). PDB can be easily prepared by 4'-piperazinoacetophenone and 2-(4-diethylamino)-2-hydroxybenzoyl) benzoicacid, containing a piperazine group for labeling and imaging lysosomes and the high pKa value (∼9.35) allowed PDB to efficiently track lysosomes. The emission wavelength of PDB in aqueous solution was 634 nm (λex = 572 nm, Фf = 0.11). The dynamic process of lysosome induced by starvation and rapamycin was successfully explored by fluorescence imaging. Compared with the commercially available Lyso-Tracker green, the high photostability fluorescent probe can ensure 3D high-fidelity tracking and resist photobleaching. Therefore, PDB, unaffected by the cell microenvironment, successfully achieved long-term tracking of lysosomal movement, even enabling imaging in tumor-bearing mice over 11 days. The strong fluorescence signal, high stability, and long-term tracking capability indicate that PDB has tremendous potential in monitoring biological processes.

Design of Bright Chemogenetic Reporters Based on the Combined Engineering of Fluorogenic Molecular Rotors and of the HaloTag Protein

The combination of fluorogenic probes (fluorogens) and self-labeling protein tags represent a promising tool for imaging biological processes with high specificity but it requires the adequation between the fluorogen and its target to ensure a good activation of its fluorescence. In this work, we report a strategy to develop molecular rotors that specifically target HaloTag with a strong enhancement of their fluorescence. The divergent design facilitates the diversification of the structures to tune the photophysical and cellular properties. Four bright fluorogens with emissions ranging from green to red were identified and applied in wash-free live cell imaging experiments with good contrast and selectivity. A HaloTag mutant adapted from previous literature reports was also tested and shown to further improve the brightness and reaction rate of the most promising fluorogen of the series both in vitro and in cells. This work opens new possibilities to develop bright chemogenetic reporters with diverse photophysical and biological properties by exploring a potentially large chemical space of simple dipolar fluorophores in combination with protein engineering.

Chemical Approaches to Optimize the Properties of Organic Fluorophores for Imaging and Sensing

Organic fluorophores are indispensable tools in cells, tissue and in vivo imaging, and have enabled much progress in the wide range of biological and biomedical fields. However, many available dyes suffer from insufficient performances, such as short absorption and emission wavelength, low brightness, poor stability, small Stokes shift, and unsuitable permeability, restricting their application in advanced imaging technology and complex imaging. Over the past two decades, many efforts have been made to improve these performances of fluorophores. Starting with the luminescence principle of fluorophores, this review clarifies the mechanisms of the insufficient performance for traditional fluorophores to a certain extent, systematically summarizes the modified approaches of optimizing properties, highlights the typical applications of the improved fluorophores in imaging and sensing, and indicates existing problems and challenges in this area. This progress not only proves the significance of improving fluorophores properties, but also provide a theoretical guidance for the development of high-performance fluorophores.

Functional Materials for Subcellular Targeting Strategies in Cancer Therapy: Progress and Prospects

Neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapies have made significant progress in cancer treatment. However, tumor adjuvant therapy still faces challenges due to the intrinsic heterogeneity of cancer, genomic instability, and the formation of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Functional materials possess unique biological properties such as long circulation times, tumor-specific targeting, and immunomodulation. The combination of functional materials with natural substances and nanotechnology has led to the development of smart biomaterials with multiple functions, high biocompatibilities, and negligible immunogenicities, which can be used for precise cancer treatment. Recently, subcellular structure-targeting functional materials have received particular attention in various biomedical applications including the diagnosis, sensing, and imaging of tumors and drug delivery. Subcellular organelle-targeting materials can precisely accumulate therapeutic agents in organelles, considerably reduce the threshold dosages of therapeutic agents, and minimize drug-related side effects. This review provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the research progress in subcellular organelle-targeted cancer therapy based on functional nanomaterials. Moreover, it explains the challenges and prospects of subcellular organelle-targeting functional materials in precision oncology. The review will serve as an excellent cutting-edge guide for researchers in the field of subcellular organelle-targeted cancer therapy.