Reengineering Cyanine Dyes via Borondifluoro Indolenine: A Tunable Platform for Wash-Free Imaging and Responsive Biosensing
Fluorescent probes are essential tools for visualizing biological processes, yet conventional cyanine dyes suffer from limited structural flexibility, poor photostability, and weak compatibility with wash-free imaging. Here, we introduce a modular, neutral BF<sub>2</sub>-bridged cyanine (BCy) platform by re-engineering the indolium scaffold with a borondifluoro indolenine (BFI) fragment. BCy dyes exhibit high brightness (up to 12.4 × 10<sup>4</sup> M<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-1</sup>), robust photostability, and emissions spanning 588-837 nm. The tunable BFI moiety enables the construction of wash-free, far-red/NIR probes for the plasma membrane, lipid droplets, mitochondria, and lysosomes as well as pH- and H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub>-responsive sensors. These probes support high-contrast multicolor and STED imaging, as well as dynamic organelle tracking in live cells and a mouse model of liver injury. This work establishes BF<sub>2</sub>-cyanines as robust scaffolds for next-generation fluorophores in advanced bioimaging and biomedical diagnostics.
Authors
- Tianruo Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5417-0783)
- Wuyu Mao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6143-5943)
- Haihui Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0921-6180)
- Xiaogang Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2553-2068)
- Lili Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1170-8528)
- Jifa Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8618-9200)
- Li Chai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1937-4750)
- Tianyou Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5239-1125)
- Zixuan Zhan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7705-2288)
- Jie Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6320-3257)
Institutions
- Singapore University of Technology and Design (SG)
- Sichuan University (CN)
- West China Hospital of Sichuan University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2025-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c05565
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Nanoplatforms for cancer theranostics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.07
Funders
- Ministry of Education - Singapore
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Singapore University of Technology and Design