A customizable fluorescent probe platform that can be used to detect various bioactive analytes offers significant potential for engineering a wide range of bioprobes with diverse sensing and imaging functions. Here, we show a facile and innovative strategy for introducing cis-amino-proline as a carrier scaffold, which is appended with three specific functional groups: a target group, a water-soluble group, and fluorophores with triggers. The potency of the designed strategy could be customized to generate variable multifunctional fluorescent probes for detecting bioactive species of interest, including reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), reactive sulfur species (RSS), ROS/RSS, and even enzymes. We designed and synthesized five representative water-soluble and organelle-targeted compounds, PMB, PMN, PMD, PRB, and PME, with emission wavelengths of these fluorescent probes varying from blue to red (465, 480, 535, 550, 565, and 640 nm). This strategy could be exemplified by its application to develop a mitochondria-/lysosome-targeting multifunctional fluorescent probe capable of imaging bioactive species of interest in live cells and nude mice.
Keywords: bioactive species; cis-amino-proline; enzymes; multifunctional fluorescent probe platform; organelle-targeted; water-soluble.