Development of triphenylamine-based fluorescent probe with a large Stokes' shift suitable for locating mitochondria

In this work, we have developed a novel mitochondria-targetable fluorescent probe (CDPI) with a large Stokes' shift (169-198 nm) based on triphenylamine fluorescent platform. It is found that triphenylamine-based probe CDPI has maximal emission at around 650 nm, in the red-emitting region. Taking of this optical feature, the newly developed CDPI possesses much larger Stokes' shift in various solutions than commercial mitochondria probes. Moreover, probe CDPI is capable of imaging mitochondria in different living cells lines. The confocal image of CDPI merged well with that of the commercial mitochondria fluorescent probes MTR, and the Pearson's colocalization coefficient reached 0.97 in 4T-1 cells. Furthermore, the probe exhibits excellent photostability and can real-time image mitochondria in different living cell lines. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.