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A solvent-assisted ESIPT fluorescent dye for F−/Ag+ sensing and high-resolution imaging of the cilia in live cells

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Abstract

A solvent-assisted ESIPT fluorescent dye was synthesized and used as a probe (2-PPN) for the detection of F−/Ag+ and high-resolution imaging of the cilia in live cells. The developed ESIPT fluorophore exhibited strong tautomeric fluorescence in protic solvents and normal emission in aprotic solvents, which is a significant departure from that of conventional intramolecular ESIPT compounds. The H-binding interaction of F− and the chelation of Ag+ with the ESIPT module of 2-PPN resulted in significant tautomeric emission quenching. From this basis, the 2-PPN-based assays for the detection of F− and Ag+ were established. The detection limit for F− and Ag+ sensing is 2.4 nM and 1.5 nM, respectively. The selective experimental results showed that no tautomeric fluorescence change of 2-PPN could be observed in the presence of the other inorganic ions in the same medium, revealing high selectivity of 2-PPN to F− and Ag+. Furthermore, MTT assay experiments proved that the probe 2-PPN exhibited low cytotoxicity and good cell membrane permeability. The probe was also further successfully utilized to image the cilia in vitro MCF7 cells, displaying its high-resolution imaging performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31527803; 21545010), the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province (No. 18A141), and the State Key Laboratory of Bio-organic and Natural Product Chemistry (No. SKLBNPC19250).

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  1. College of Chemistry and Food Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Fuchun Gong, Dan Zeng, Hanming Zhu, You Qian, Lingzhi He, Jiaoyun Xia & Zhong Cao

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  1. Fuchun Gong
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Fuchun Gong: conceptualization, investigation; Dan Zeng: data curation, formal analysis; Hanming Zhu: methodology; Lingzhi He: funding acquisition, writing—original draft; You Qian: resources, software; Jiaoyun Xia: writing—review and editing; Zhong Cao: project administration

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Gong, F., Zeng, D., Zhu, H. et al. A solvent-assisted ESIPT fluorescent dye for F−/Ag+ sensing and high-resolution imaging of the cilia in live cells. Anal Bioanal Chem 413, 6343–6353 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-021-03590-3

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