Fluorescent probes articles within Nature Chemistry

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  • News & Views |

    As the need for specific fluorescent probes that enable high sensitivity and super-resolution imaging experiments continues to grow, it is imperative to develop new, well-characterized methods to modulate the emission of fluorophores. Now, a general platform affords visible-to-NIR fluorogenic fluorophores by engineering a simple cyclization event into cyanine dyes.

    • Quintashia D. Wilson
    •  & Ellen M. Sletten

  • Article |

    DNA G-quadruplexes can adopt a variety of secondary structures, but it is challenging to identify and classify them quickly. Multivariate analysis of different fluorescence enhancements—generated from an arrayed suite of synthetic hosts and cationic dyes—enables discrimination between G-quadruplex structures of identical length and similar topological types.

    • Junyi Chen
    • , Briana L. Hickey
    •  & Wenwan Zhong

  • Article |

    A method for the covalent labelling of proteins by installing a biostable peptide nucleic acid (PNA) tag has now been developed. The PNA label serves as a generic landing platform that enables the recruitment of fluorescent dyes via nucleic acid hybridization and fluorophore removal by toehold-mediated strand displacement. Imaging of cell surface receptors, including internalized receptors, has been demonstrated using this approach.

    • Georgina C. Gavins
    • , Katharina Gröger
    •  & Oliver Seitz

  • Article |

    Modular hybridization probes (M-Probes) have been developed that enable sequence-selective binding of complex nucleic acid targets. The M-probes can target sequences that: are hypervariable at prescribed loci, are long continuous sequences of over 500 nucleotides, or contain repetitive sequences. A hybrid-capture assay using the M-probes was developed that was capable of determining the exact triplet repeat expansion number in the Huntington's gene from genomic DNA.

    • Juexiao Sherry Wang
    • , Yan Helen Yan
    •  & David Yu Zhang

  • Article |

    Reversible fluorescent probes for intracellular glutathione (GSH) imaging have now been designed and synthesized based on Si-rhodamine fluorophores. These probes are shown to be capable of quantifying the GSH concentration in various living cell types and also for monitoring real-time live-cell imaging of GSH dynamics with a temporal resolution of seconds.

    • Keitaro Umezawa
    • , Masafumi Yoshida
    •  & Yasuteru Urano

  • Article |

    The use of kinetic simulations to guide the design of competitive hybridization probe systems is shown to enable high selectivity for single-nucleotide variants. Using this approach across 44 cancer mutation/wild-type sequence pairs showed between a 200- and 3,000-fold higher binding affinity than the corresponding wild-type sequence. In combination with PCR amplification this method enabled the detection of a 1% concentration of variant alleles in human genomic DNA.

    • Juexiao Sherry Wang
    •  & David Yu Zhang

  • Article |

    Recognition, differentiation and sensing of small molecules displaying only sparse functionalities using artificial receptors is extremely challenging. Now a method to selectively bind and recognise low-epitope targets has been developed. The approach uses the formation of ternary complexes between small-molecule targets, their non-specific organic (or organometallic) receptors, and aptamers.

    • Kyung-Ae Yang
    • , Mihaela Barbu
    •  & Milan N. Stojanovic

  • News & Views |

    For decades chemists have focused on increasing the brightness of fluorophores. In super-resolution microscopy, however, fluorophores that preferentially exist in a non-fluorescent state, but occasionally re-arrange into a fluorescent form, can give better results.

    • Gražvydas Lukinavičius
    •  & Kai Johnsson

  • Article |

    A self-blinking fluorophore suitable for super-resolution imaging has been developed. The blinking arises from a reversible intramolecular spirocyclization in a rhodamine-based fluorophore that switches between a fluorescent open form and a non-fluorescent closed form. The advantages over existing methodologies are demonstrated using single-molecule localization microscopy imaging inside cells.

    • Shin-nosuke Uno
    • , Mako Kamiya
    •  & Yasuteru Urano

  • Article |

    Controlling the self-assembly of small molecules within living animals is complicated because of the complex and dynamic nature of the physiological environment. Here, a strategy for directing in situ self-assembly of small molecules into fluorescent nano-aggregates in living mice is demonstrated. The nano-aggregates can be used for imaging caspase-3/7 activity in human tumour xenograft mouse models.

    • Deju Ye
    • , Adam J. Shuhendler
    •  & Jianghong Rao

  • News & Views |

    A new biocompatible near-infrared fluorescent probe enables super-resolution imaging of cellular proteins in live cells using a range of different labelling techniques.

    • Kathrin Lang
    •  & Jason W. Chin

  • Article |

    Fluorescent probes for bioimaging need to exhibit bright fluorescence, be biocompatible and offer several alternatives for attachment to biomolecules of interest. Here, a near-infrared silicon–rhodamine fluorophore is introduced that can be coupled to intracellular proteins in live cells and tissues and can be exploited for super-resolution microscopy.

    • Gražvydas Lukinavičius
    • , Keitaro Umezawa
    •  & Kai Johnsson

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