A series of meso amide BODIPY based lysosome-targeting fluorescent probe with high photostability and sensitivity

Lysosomes are important organelles in physiological and pathological processes. It is of great significance to understand the mechanism of lysosome and monitor its movement and action at cellular level. Traditional lysosome trackers include Lyso-Tracker Green and Lyso-Tracker Red. However, both of them are tend to be photobleached easily and affected by pH variation, which is not conducive for long-term and real-time tracing of lysosomes in changeable environment. Herein, we designed a series of meso amide BODIPY based lysosome-targeting fluorescent probes. It was discovered that introduction of methyl group on amide is able to change the fluorescence characteristics of meso amide BODIPY. Among BODIPYs developed, Lyso-Me-1 exhibited outstanding lysosome-targeting ability in comparison with Lyso-Tracker Green confirmed by confocal microscope colocalization experiment. Moreover, continuous scanning of confocal microscope demonstrated that Lyso-Me-1 displayed improved photostability compared with Lyso-Tracker Green and Lyso-Tracker Red.