Dual-functional AIE fluorescent probes for imaging ß-amyloid plaques and lipid droplets.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease. Better imaging and early diagnosis of biomarkers of AD is extremely important for therapeutic interventions. The amyloid cascade hypothesis and its revised version identify insoluble ß-amyloid deposition as a good diagnostic biomarker for AD. Moreover, lipid droplets may also act as an auxiliary biomarker related to AD pathology based on recent studies. Herein, two quinoline-based AIE probes were designed and synthesized for the imaging of Aß plaques and lipid droplets. The probes exhibited remarkable turn-on fluorescence enhancements with the Aß aggregates. The lipid droplets-targeting probe FB exhibited high selectivity and binding affinity towards the Aß aggregates with a detection limit as low as 26.9 nM. Furthermore, FB was capable of readily imaging Aß plaques and lipid droplets at the cellular level and in brain sections of transgenic AD mice. The probe FB can serve as a promising tool for developing early diagnosis and innovative therapeutics of AD.

A lysosome-targeting dual-functional fluorescent probe for imaging intracellular viscosity and beta-amyloid.

A lysosome-targeting dual-functional fluorescent probe was rationally designed and developed for imaging intracellular lysosomal viscosity and beta-amyloid. More importantly, the real-time tracking of the dynamic movement of lysosomes, as vesicle structures, has been achieved using Lyso-MC.