MemBright: A Family of Fluorescent Membrane Probes for Advanced Cellular Imaging and Neuroscience

The proper staining of the plasma membrane (PM) is critical in bioimaging as it delimits the cell. Herein, we developed MemBright, a family of six cyanine-based fluorescent turn-on PM probes that emit from orange to near infrared when reaching the PM, and enable homogeneous and selective PM staining with excellent contrast in mono- and two-photon microscopy. These probes are compatible with long-term live-cell imaging and immunostaining. Moreover, MemBright label neurons in a brighter manner than surrounding cells, allowing identification of neurons in acute brain tissue sections and neuromuscular junctions without any use of transfection or transgenic animals. In addition, MemBright probes were used in super-resolution imaging to unravel the neck of dendritic spines. 3D multicolor dSTORM in combination with immunostaining revealed en-passant synapse displaying endogenous glutamate receptors clustered at the axonal-dendritic contact site. MemBright probes thus constitute a universal toolkit for cell biology and neuroscience biomembrane imaging with a variety of microscopy techniques. VIDEO ABSTRACT.