Engineered DR/NIR dual-emission carbonized polymer dots for simultaneous tracking of lipid droplets and lysosomes

Shan Miao; Junyong Sun; Ying Li; Qiang Zhang; Hongqi Chen; Feng Gao

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2024.125598

Engineered DR/NIR dual-emission carbonized polymer dots for simultaneous tracking of lipid droplets and lysosomes

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2024 Dec 17:329:125598. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2024.125598. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Shan Miao¹, Junyong Sun², Ying Li¹, Qiang Zhang³, Hongqi Chen¹, Feng Gao⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Functionalized Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing, Laboratory of Optical Probes and Bioelectrocatalysis (LOPAB), Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials and Chemical Measurement, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, PR China.
² Laboratory of Functionalized Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing, Laboratory of Optical Probes and Bioelectrocatalysis (LOPAB), Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials and Chemical Measurement, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, PR China. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Anhui Provincial Engineering Research Center for Polysaccharide Drugs and Institute of Synthesis and Application of Medical Materials, Department of Pharmacy, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu 241002, PR China.
⁴ Laboratory of Functionalized Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing, Laboratory of Optical Probes and Bioelectrocatalysis (LOPAB), Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials and Chemical Measurement, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, PR China. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 39706069
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2024.125598

Abstract

Developing near-infrared fluorescent probes for simultaneous tracking of lipid droplets (LDs) and lysosomes is highly desirable for studying cell metabolism. In this work, deep-red/near-infrared dual-emission carbonized polymer dots (DN-CPDs) were prepared for ratiometric monitoring of the intracellular polarity. Detailed structural analysis revealed that the deep-red emission and near-infrared peak of DN-CPDs originate from the molecular state and surface state, respectively. The surface-state emission was derived from the intraparticle charge-transfer (ICT) effect of the donor-bridge-acceptor (D-π-A) structure of DN-CPDs. The obtained DN-CPDs exhibited excellent dual-labeling ability, large Stokes shifts, ratiometric polarity sensitivity, high selectivity, and satisfactory photostability. Moreover, with the polarity distinction between LDs and lysosomes, DN-CPDs nanoprobes were successfully used to observe the dynamic changes of the two aforementioned organelles during starvation-induced lipophagy and drug-induced lipophagy inhibition processes. This work not only provides a useful tool for LD-lysosome related studies but is also valuable for the preparation of CPDs with long wavelength emission.

Keywords: Carbonized polymer dots; Lipid droplets; Lipophagy; Lysosomes; Polarity probe.