Tracking of mercury ions in living cells with a fluorescent chemodosimeter under single- or two-photon excitation.
Tracking of Hg2+ in solutions as well as in living cells was conducted with a fluorescent chemodosimeter by measuring the spectral shift of its fluorescence under single- or two-photon excitation. The spectral hypsochromic shifts of this chemodosimeter when reacting with Hg2+ were found to be about 50 nm in acetonitrile/water solutions and 32 nm in Euglena gracilis 277 living cells. This chemodosimeter shows high sensitivity and selectivity, and is not influenced by the pH values. It can signal Hg2+ in solutions down to the ppb range under either single-photon excitation (SPE) at 405 nm or two-photon excitation (TPE) at 800 nm. However, with low cellular chemodosimeter concentrations, the SPE spectra were disturbed by the auto-fluorescence from the native fluorophore in the cell, while the TPE spectra were still of high quality since the two-photon absorption cross section of this chemodosimeter is much larger than that of the native fluorophores in the cell.
Lu
Zhou-Jun
ZJ
State Key Lab for Advanced Photonic Materials and Devices, Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Wang
Pei-Nan
PN
Zhang
Yu
Y
Chen
Ji-Yao
JY
Zhen
Shen
S
Leng
Bing
B
Tian
He
H
D002413:Cations, Divalent / Q000737:chemistry; D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010670:Phenylthiourea / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D017785:Photons; D012996:Solutions; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
D002413:Cations, Divalent; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D012996:Solutions; D010670:Phenylthiourea; D008628:Mercury; C037877:benzylthiourea