Novel fluorescent probes with high signal-to-noise ratios for lipid droplet-specific bioimaging

Abstract

Precise visualization of lipid droplets (LDs) by fluorescence imaging is crucial for the study of pathogenesis and early diagnosis of atherosclerosis. However, current commercial lipid-specific probes suffer from inadequate imaging capabilities. In this work, we designed two probes (BZMN and BZID) with large Stokes shifts, excellent biocompatibility, and superior photostability. Both BZMN and BZID demonstrated extremely low fluorescence in aqueous solution and significantly enhanced fluorescence in lipid environments, resulting in high signal-to-noise ratios. In addition, they exhibited great LDs-specific imaging performance in cellular and mouse atherosclerosis models, facilitating the observation of LDs' dynamic movements. This work provided promising candidates for the precise imaging of LDs, holding great potential for improving the early diagnosis of atherosclerosis.