Imaging of formaldehyde in live cells and plants utilizing small molecular probes with large stokes shifts.

The fluorescent imaging of formaldehyde ( FA ) in live cells and plant tissues plays important role in physiological and pathological studies. However, the development of effective tools or facile strategies to selectively detect FA in bio-systems still remains a great challenge. Herein, two simple probes ( BT-1 and BT-2 ) based on N -heterocyclic derivates have been designed and synthesized for detection of FA in live cells and plant tissues with a significant fluorescence enhancement and large Stokes shifts (about 116 nm). These probes can fast react with FA (less than 3 min), showing the potential ability of detection FA in real time. After interaction with FA , BT-1 has a longer absorption and emission wavelength, better response characteristics as compared with BT-2 . In vitro tests, the maximal fluorescence intensity of each spectrum exhibited excellent linear correlation with the concentration of FA added. Furthermore, the test strips coated with BT-1 can not only differentiate different concentrations of FA and but also recognize FA gas from other relative gases through the changes of fluorescence color which can easily observed by naked eye as these test strips were excited by hand-held UV lamp. More importantly, BT-1 has been successfully used to detect exogenous and endogenous FA in live Arabidopsis thaliana tissues, demonstrating its potential application for studies of physiological and pathological processes associated with FA . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]