ESIPT-Based Photoactivatable Fluorescent Probe for Ratiometric Spatiotemporal Bioimaging

Xiaohong Zhou; Yuren Jiang; Xiongjie Zhao; Dong Guo

doi:10.3390/s16101684

ESIPT-Based Photoactivatable Fluorescent Probe for Ratiometric Spatiotemporal Bioimaging

Sensors (Basel). 2016 Oct 12;16(10):1684. doi: 10.3390/s16101684.

Authors

Xiaohong Zhou^{1

2}, Yuren Jiang³, Xiongjie Zhao⁴, Dong Guo⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. zhouxh001@csu.edu.cn.
² Environment Monitoring Department, Changsha Environmental Protection College, Changsha 410004, China. zhouxh001@csu.edu.cn.
³ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. jiangyr@mail.csu.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. 152301025@csu.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. guo4675@csu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Photoactivatable fluorophores have become an important technique for the high spatiotemporal resolution of biological imaging. Here, we developed a novel photoactivatable probe (PHBT), which is based on 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole (HBT), a small organic fluorophore known for its classic luminescence mechanism through excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) with the keto form and the enol form. After photocleavage, PHBT released a ratiometric fluorophore HBT, which showed dual emission bands with more than 73-fold fluorescence enhancement at 512 nm in buffer and more than 69-fold enhancement at 452 nm in bovine serum. The probe displayed a high ratiometric imaging resolution and is believed to have a wide application in biological imaging.

Keywords: ESIPT; photoactivatable; ratiometric.