Design and synthesis of fluorenone-based dyes: two-photon excited fluorescent probes for imaging of lysosomes and mitochondria in living cells

J Mater Chem B. 2015 Apr 28;3(16):3315-3323. doi: 10.1039/c4tb02116a. Epub 2015 Mar 19.

Abstract

Three fluorenone-derived two-photon fluorescent probes (TK) targeting the lysosomes (TK-Lyso) and mitochondria (TK-Mito1 and TK-Mito2) were synthesized by introducing different diphenylamine moieties into the fluorenone core. The TK dyes showed high biocompatibility and long-term retention, low cytotoxicity, large Stokes shift and good fluorescence quantum yield. The results of the present work disclose a class of organic dyes with potential wide applications as specific and efficient probes for lysosomes and mitochondria in the study of various biological processes.