A Disassembly Strategy for Imaging Endogenous Pyrophosphate in Mitochondria by Using an Fe(III) -salen Complex

Inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) is produced from nucleoside triphosphates in important biosynthetic reactions and is considered a diagnostic marker for various diseases, such as cancer, crystal deposition disease, and arthritis. Traditional methods for biological PPi detection rely on off-line analytics after sample destruction. Molecular probes for imaging this biologically important analyte with temporal and spatial control in living cells are currently in demand. Herein, we report an Fe(III) -salen complex as the first small reaction-based probe for endogenous mitochondrial PPi following a disassembly approach. Significantly, we successfully applied this complex for the detection of increased cellular PPi levels, and its performance was not affected by the presence of mitochondrial ATP in living cells.