Versatile organic fluorescent probes for visualizing the dynamics of lipid droplets

Lipid droplets (LDs) have recently garnered significant attention due to their pivotal roles in life and diseases. Thus, seeking suitable tools to visualize the dynamics of LDs and reveal their mysterious functions is particularly important. Organic fluorescent probes provide significant advantages in terms of excellent sensitivity, high selectivity, and remarkable spatial resolution for the in situ and real-time detection and monitoring of diverse biological species. This review summarizes recent progress on organic fluorescent probes for the dynamic imaging of LDs in biological applications. First, the design principles of fluorescent LD probes are briefly described. The subsequent sections present versatile applications involving the use of representative fluorescent LD probes for super-resolution imaging, analyte sensing, organelle interaction visualization, and theranostics. Finally, we discuss our understanding and opinions regarding further directions for the development of high-performance LD probes. This review provides new insights to advance our understanding of LDs and is expected to inspire the design of more intelligent and powerful fluorescent LD probes.