Smart Applications of Lanthanide Chelates-based Luminescent Probes in Bio-imaging

Area of Science:

• Biomedical imaging
• Chemical sensing
• Photophysics

Background:

• Luminescent Lanthanide (III) bioprobes (LLBs) are advanced intracellular molecular probes.
• They are crucial for revealing analytes and signaling intracellular events in bio-imaging.
• LLBs offer advantages over organic fluorophores due to tunable photophysical sensitization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide an application-driven overview of Luminescent Lanthanide (III) bioprobes.
• To showcase examples where LLBs provide quantitative insights into biophysical events.
• To focus on imaging techniques like fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM).

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on Luminescent Lanthanide (III) bioprobes.
• Focus on application-driven examples in bio-imaging.
• Analysis of data acquired via emission intensity and fluorescence lifetime measurements.

Main Results:

• Demonstration of LLBs' utility in detecting analytes and monitoring cellular activities.
• Highlighting the quantitative response of LLBs to specific biophysical events.
• Successful application of FLIM for acquiring detailed emissive information.

Conclusions:

• Luminescent Lanthanide (III) bioprobes are powerful tools for bio-imaging and disease diagnostics.
• The ability to finely tune and trigger their luminescence is key to their application.
• FLIM provides valuable insights into intracellular processes using LLBs.