Aggregation induced emission (AIE) materials for mitochondria imaging

Mitochondria are energy producing organelle of the eukaryotic cells. The main activities of mitochondria monitored by various marker molecules are autophagy detection, estimation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), mitochondrial death and Photodynamic therapy in cancer cells. Due to the advantages of specificity and sensitivity, aggregation induced emission (AIE) is now popular for the mitochondria labeling. In this chapter, we would like to discuss three major types of AIEgens probe used in mitochondrial staining. There are three different types of AIEgens available for mitochondrial detection and sensing based on their different structural motifs. The first type of AIEgens is tetraphenylethene (TPE) based molecules. Due to simple engineering architecture, TPE based AIEgens are widely employed in bioimaging applications. AIEgen such as triphenylphosphine (TPP), and triphenylamine (TPA) are also employed as a novel building block. These are successfully used as exceptional lipid droplet (LD)-specific bio probes in cell imaging, assurance of cell combination, and photodynamic cancer cell removal. The third group is the miscellaneous AIEgens probe involved in mitochondria imaging.