A Minireview of Recent Reported Carboxylesterase Fluorescent Probes: Design and Biological Applications

As the most important members of serine esterase hydrolase superfamily, mammalian carboxylesterases (CESs) are widely distributed in various tissues like liver, intestine, lung and kidney. Many physiological processes require the hydrolysis of CES with a variety of endogenous and exogenous ester drugs and environmental poisons. So, developing the methods that can detect CESs activity is of great significance. In last decades, huge breakthrough has been made in the development of specific detection technologies including chromatography, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), proteomics and western blotting. However, these traditional methods for CESs detection have little effect on the spatiotemporal distribution and in situ activity of CES in living cells and in vivo. Compared with that, fluorogenic methods have been developed for real-time monitoring CESs in biological environments. In this review, we summarized the recent reported CESs probes. The designing strategies as well as their applications are reviewed. We hope this review will inspire the development of novel specific CESs fluorescent probes.