Near-Infrared\nFluorescent Probe Reveals Elevated Mitochondrial\nViscosity during Acute Alcoholic Liver Injury

Acute alcoholic liver injury (AALI) has become an important\ncause\nof liver disease worldwide, and there is an urgent need to develop\nnoninvasive and sensitive methods to detect and evaluate AALI. We\nreport herein three novel but readily available mitochondrial targeting\nfluorescence probes (<b>ICR</b>, <b>ICJ</b>, and <b>ICQ</b>) for AALI detection. These probes contain different electron-donating\ngroups, among which <b>ICQ</b> exhibits NIR fluorescence (740\nnm), a large Stokes shift (110 nm), and a sensitive response to viscosity\n(73-fold enhancement in fluorescence from water to glycerol), making\nit suitable for <i>in vivo</i> imaging. <b>ICQ</b> also exhibits an excellent ability to image mitochondrial viscosity\nchanges in cells. More importantly, <b>ICQ</b> can target the\nliver selectively and image the viscosity changes in the liver noninvasively.\nThrough establishing an AALI mouse model, <b>ICQ</b> was successfully\napplied to the <i>in situ</i> imaging changes in liver viscosity\nduring the AALI process. The results showed a significant increase\nin liver viscosity in AALI mice, indicating that viscosity can serve\nas a marker for AALI, and <b>ICQ</b> is a promising noninvasive\nand sensitive tool for detecting and evaluating AALI.