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A New Fluorescent Squaraine Probe for the Measurement of Membrane Polarity

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The present study was undertaken to evaluate the sensitivity of newly synthesized squaraine dye 1 to the changes in lipid bilayer physical properties and compared it with the well-known dye 2. Partitioning of the dye 1 into lipid bilayer was found to be followed by significant increase of its fluorescence intensity and red-shift of emission maximum, while intensity of the dye 2 fluorescence increased only slightly on going from aqueous to lipidic environment. This suggests that dye 1 is more sensitive to the changes in membrane properties as compared to dye 2. Partition coefficients of the dye 1 have been determined for the model membranes composed of zwitterionic phospholipid phosphatidylcholine (PC) and its mixtures with positively charged detergent cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), anionic phospholipid cardiolipin (CL), and sterol (Chol). The spectral responses of the dye 1 in different liposome media proved to correlate with the increase of bilayer polarity induced by Chol and CL or its decrease caused by CTAB. It was concluded that dye 1 can be used as fluorescent probe for examining membrane-related processes.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the STCU grant no. U111. The authors are indebted to referees for valuable remarks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Medical Physics, V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University, Kharkov, Ukraine

    Valeriya M. Ioffe, Galyna P. Gorbenko & Yegor A. Domanov

  2. STC “Institute for Single Crystals” of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov, Ukraine

    Anatoliy L. Tatarets & Leonid D. Patsenker

  3. SETA BioMedicals, LLC, Torrance, California, US

    Ewald A. Terpetsching

  4. Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov, Ukraine

    Tatyana S. Dyubko

  5. 32-90 Geroyev Truda Street, 61146, Kharkov, Ukraine

    Valeriya M. Ioffe

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  1. Valeriya M. Ioffe
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  2. Galyna P. Gorbenko
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  3. Yegor A. Domanov
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  4. Anatoliy L. Tatarets
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  5. Leonid D. Patsenker
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  6. Ewald A. Terpetsching
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Correspondence to Valeriya M. Ioffe.

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Ioffe, V.M., Gorbenko, G.P., Domanov, Y.A. et al. A New Fluorescent Squaraine Probe for the Measurement of Membrane Polarity. J Fluoresc 16, 47–52 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-005-0018-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-005-0018-2

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