Imaging of zinc ions across diverse biological samples with a quinoline-based tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine fluorescent probe

Binghui You; Ling Li; Zheng Li; Wei Wang; Yanli Yang; Wei Cheng; Xiangjie Luo; Yong Qian

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2024.127267

Imaging of zinc ions across diverse biological samples with a quinoline-based tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine fluorescent probe

Talanta. 2024 Nov 22:284:127267. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.127267. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Binghui You¹, Ling Li¹, Zheng Li¹, Wei Wang¹, Yanli Yang¹, Wei Cheng¹, Xiangjie Luo², Yong Qian³

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Biomedical Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China.
² Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Biomedical Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China. Electronic address: xiangjieluo@qq.com.
³ Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Biomedical Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China; Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom. Electronic address: yongqian@njnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 39586214
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.127267

Abstract

Zinc ions (Zn²⁺) is actively involved in diverse biological processes. Therefore, the precise detection of Zn²⁺ ion is an important object of increasing investigation. Although numerous fluorescent zinc ion detection probes have been developed, simple, biocompatible, and sensitive probes are still urgently needed. Herein, we reported two novel fluorescent probes, ZnTP1 and ZnTP2, by incorporating a quinoline fluorophore into a membrane-permeable zinc chelator tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine. ZnTP1 exhibited a significant fluorescence enhancement in the presence of zinc ions through chelation-enhanced fluorescence (CHEF) processes, whereas probe ZnTP2 did not show any significant change in fluorescence due to the insertion of the carbonyl group. Further investigations revealed that ZnTP1 can effectively penetrate cell membranes and detect Zn²⁺ with high sensitivity in diverse biological samples, including living cells, plant tissues, and animal model zebrafish. This work suggests that ZnTP1 as a simple and efficient chemical probe has great potential for zinc ions detection in various biological contexts, thus providing a new tool for probing zinc ions in biosystems.

Keywords: Fluorescent probe; Live cell imaging; Zebrafish; Zinc ions.