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A novel zinc bis(thiosemicarbazone) complex for live cell imaging

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Abstract

Fluorescent zinc complexes have recently attracted a lot of interest owing to their vast applications in cellular imaging. We report the synthesis as well as physical, chemical and biological studies of a novel zinc glyoxalbis(4-methyl-4-phenyl-3-thiosemicarbazone), [Zn(GTSC)]3, complex. As compared with the well-studied zinc biacetylbis(4-methyl-3-thiosemicarbazone), Zn(ATSM), complex, which was used as a reference, [Zn(GTSC)]3 had 2.5-fold higher fluorescence. When cellular fluorescence was measured using flow cytometry, we observed that [Zn(GTSC)]3 had 3.4-fold to 12-fold higher fluorescence than Zn(ATSM) in various cell lines (n = 9) of different tissue origin. Confocal fluorescence microscopy results showed that [Zn(GTSC)]3 appeared to have a nuclear localization within 30 min of addition to MCF7 cells. Moreover, [Zn(GTSC)]3 showed minimal cytotoxicity compared with Zn(ATSM), suggesting that [Zn(GTSC)]3 may be less deleterious to cells when used as an imaging agent. Our data suggest that the novel [Zn(GTSC)]3 complex can potentially serve as a biocompatible fluorescent imaging agent for live cells.

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Notes

  1. The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) numbers for [Zn(GTSC)]3, [Zn(BTSC)(DMSO)] and BTSCH2 are CCDC 776332, CCDC 776330 and CCDC 776331.

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Acknowledgments

D.D. thanks the Indian Instutite of Science (IISc) for an IISc Centenary Postdoctoral Fellowship. D.P. acknowledges the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research for a Senior Research Fellowship. K.S. and A.G.S. thank the Department of Science and Technology (New Delhi) for a research grant. We thank IRIS, IISc and Pushpa Janardhan for assistance with the confocal fluorescence microscopy experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Disha Dayal, Sridevi Vijay Shinde & Kumaravel Somasundaram

  2. Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Duraippandi Palanimuthu & Ashoka G. Samuelson

Authors
  1. Disha Dayal
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  2. Duraippandi Palanimuthu
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  3. Sridevi Vijay Shinde
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  4. Kumaravel Somasundaram
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  5. Ashoka G. Samuelson
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Kumaravel Somasundaram or Ashoka G. Samuelson.

Additional information

D. Dayal and D. Palanimuthu contributed equally.

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Dayal, D., Palanimuthu, D., Shinde, S.V. et al. A novel zinc bis(thiosemicarbazone) complex for live cell imaging. J Biol Inorg Chem 16, 621–632 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00775-011-0764-0

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