Dual polarity-viscosity responsive fluorescent probes for lipid droplet imaging and smartphone-based on-site crop oil...

Herein, we rationally designed and synthesized two types of D-π-A red-emitting fluorescent probes with intrinsic intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) characteristics, for traditional methods for lipid droplet detection in food crops suffer from reliance on bulky instruments, tedious sample pretreatment and the impossibility of on-site quantification. To modulate the molecular skeleton, methoxy groups were introduced, and highly specific recognition of lipid droplet microenvironments was realized through the probes' synergistic spectral response to polarity and viscosity. Typical turn-on fluorescence responses and favorable lipophilicity were displayed by both probes, thus enabling accurate localization of the hydrophobic domains of lipid droplets. Possessing ratiometric fluorescence performance, the modified probe OCH₃-Phe-FCN efficiently alleviated signal interference from complex matrices, and toward oleic acid was a lower limit of detection presented. By combining smartphone-based RGB colorimetry and image grayscale analysis was a portable detection platform constructed, with fluorescence signals employed to accomplish visual analysis of lipid droplets in food crops. Satisfactory biocompatibility and targeting capability were validated for the as-prepared probes via cell imaging and cytotoxicity evaluations, and far superior imaging quality and signal-to-noise ratio were demonstrated by the modified probe. With the aid of density functional theory (DFT) calculations, systematically elucidated was the spectral mechanism of excited-state transitions synergistically modulated by the two microenvironmental factors. Not only does this work deepen the insight into the response mechanism of dual-responsive fluorescent probes, but also a promising technical strategy is offered for in situ spectral detection of lipid droplets in food crops.