A novel near-infrared AIE probe for sensitive imaging of lipid droplet and dual-parameter cancer diagnosis

Abstract

Background

Lipid droplets (LDs) are vital intracellular organelles for lipid storage, closely associated with various metabolic disorders and cancers. Fluorescence imaging offers a powerful, non-invasive approach to study LDs in real time, but many existing probes suffer from non-specific staining and aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ), compromising their imaging specificity and contrast.

Result

In this study, we synthesized a novel LD fluorescent probe TPC-AN that takes advantage of near-infrared emission, large Stokes shift, high lipophilicity, polarity response and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics. TPC-AN effectively addresses issues of non-specific staining and ACQ commonly observed with traditional probes, enabling highly specific and high-contrast imaging of LDs. Utilizing TPC-AN, imaging of LDs in several kinds of cells was performed, and discrimination of cancerous and normal cells was achieved using dual-parameter through differences in LD fluorescence area and intensity.

Significance

This work provides a promising tool for studying LDs in diseases and offers a reliable method for cancer diagnosis, with excellent LD-specificity, low cytotoxicity, and dual-parameter imaging capabilities.