Detecting inflammation in the diabetic mice with a fluorescence lifetime-based probe

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is only related to the molecular structure and energy level distribution of the probe, not to the fluorescence intensity. It is an efficient imaging method, because it is not susceptible to interference from the internal environment of biological samples. Diabetes, as a systemic metabolic disease, causes various degrees of inflammation in organs and tissues. As we all know, inflammation of organ and tissue will affect cellular viscosity increases. In this work, a new amphiphilic molecular probe YF-V with a stable structure, good selectivity, fluorescence lifetime response and low cytotoxicity was designed. Under the condition of high viscosity, the rotation of the rotor and the twisting intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) mechanism were inhibited, leading to the extension of the fluorescence lifetime. In the cellular level, YF-V could sensitively detect the dynamic viscosity changes of cells induced by glucose through FLIM. Meanwhile, YF-V is also successfully applied to observe the difference in viscosity between the tissues and organs of diabetic mice and normal mice, and take lead in the detection of organ damage in diabetic mice with different disease durations. This provides an efficient and intuitive method for evaluating organ damage and early diagnosis in diabetes.