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Two similar structural triphenylamine-based Schiff bases “off-on” fluorescent probes for detecting Al 3+ through naked eye manner were prepared by changing their bridging groups, one via styrene ( LW1 ), the other via phenethyl ( LW2 ). This modification affected the performance remarkably in terms of selectivity, sensitivity and efficiency as well as recognition mechanism. The experimental results showed probe LW1 can selectively detect trivalent ion especially for Al 3+ by hydrolysis-chelation-enhanced fluorescence with a detection limit of 1.22 × 10 −7 M. However, probe LW2 can only highly selectively detect for Al 3+ by the direct chelation-enhanced fluorescence with a detection limit of 2.99 × 10 −7 M. Furthermore, benefiting from their good water solubility and biocompatibility, cell imaging and real-time monitoring of Al 3+ in living HepG2 cells were successfully achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lipid droplets (LDs) and lysosomes are vital organelles that play crucial roles in various physiological and pathological processes. However, simultaneous two-color visualization of these two organelles using a single probe for cell homeostasis monitoring remains a challenge due to the lack of rational design strategies. To address this issue, we have developed an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorescent probe named TPE-NDI-Mor with an electron donor (D)-acceptor (A) structure, which can stain both LDs and lysosomes with high selectivity through green and red fluorescence imaging, respectively. A detailed mechanism study revealed that TPE-NDI-Mor, with a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) effect, shows a high affinity for a polar microenvironment. Additionally, the probe also demonstrates good stability, high anti-interference performance and a large Stokes shift, making it suitable for visualizing cell homeostasis and further disease diagnosis by tracking the dynamic changes of LDs and lysosomes.

Six D-π-A model compounds (compounds 1-6) were conveniently synthesized and characterized by 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR, MS and single crystal X-ray diffraction. One photon absorption and emission properties were studied by using a series of UV-visible and fluorescence spectra and theoretical calculations were applied to investigate the structure-property relationships, which showed that all six compounds possessed an obvious intramolecular charge transfer process which could be attributed to their optical properties. We simultaneously investigated their fluorescence emission performance in water/acetonitrile mixtures and found that they all have outstanding aggregation induced emission properties. Scanning electron microscopy testing illustrated that orderly aggregation was the main reason for their aggregation induced emission properties. Cytotoxicity tests indicated that all these compounds had good biocompatibility for living cells, and bio-imaging studies highlighted the potential application of the six compounds in one-photon fluorescence microscopy imaging domains.