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Updated: May 4, 2026
Study of Phagolysosome Biogenesis in Live Macrophages
Published on: March 10, 2014
A new fluorescent pH probe for imaging lysosomes in living cells
Hong-Shui Lv1, Shu-Ya Huang2, Yu Xu1
1Institute of Organic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, PR China.
Abstract:
A new rhodamine B-based pH fluorescent probe has been synthesized and characterized. The probe responds to acidic pH with short response time, high selectivity and sensitivity, and exhibits a more than 20-fold increase in fluorescence intensity within the pH range of 7.5-4.1 with the pKa value of 5.72, which is valuable to study acidic organelles in living cells. Also, it has been successfully applied to HeLa cells, for its low cytotoxicity, brilliant photostability, good membrane permeability and no 'alkalizing effect' on lysosomes. The results demonstrate that this probe is a lysosome-specific probe, which can selectively stain lysosomes and monitor lysosomal pH changes in living cells.
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