Considering the important roles of biothiols in lysosomes of live organisms, and unique photophysical/photochemical properties of ruthenium(II) complexes, a novel ruthenium(II) complex, Ru-2, has been developed as a molecular probe for phosphorescence and time-gated luminescence assay of biothiols in human sera, live cells, and in vivo. Ru-2 is weakly luminescent due to the effective photoinduced electron transfer (PET) from Ru(II) luminophore to electron acceptor, 2,4-dinitrobenzene-sulfonyl (DNBS). In the presence of biothiols, such as glutathione (GSH), cysteine (Cys), and homocysteine (Hcy), the emission of Ru-2 solution was switched ON, as a result of the cleavage of quencher to form the product, Ru-1. Ru-2 showed high selectivity and sensitivity for the detection of biothiols under physiological conditions, with detection limits of 62 nM, 146 nM, and 115 nM for GSH, Cys, and Hcy, respectively. The emission lifetimes of Ru-1 and Ru-2 were measured to be 405 and 474 ns, respectively, which enabled them to be used for the background-free time-gated luminescence detection even in the presence of strongly fluorescent dye, rhodamine B. On the basis of this mode, the quantification of biothiols in human serum samples was achieved without interference of background autofluorescence. A morpholine moiety was introduced into the complex to ensure Ru-2 molecules to be driven into lysosomes of live cells. Ru-2 showed low cytotoxicity and excellent membrane permeability toward live cells. Using Ru-2 as an imaging agent, visualizations of biothiols in lysosomes of live cells and in Daphnia magna were successfully demonstrated. The results suggested the potential of Ru-2 for the biomedical diagnosis of biothiol-related human diseases.

We report a ratiometric luminescence probe for sensing and imaging of mitochondrial ONOO− based on a ruthenium(ii) complex–cyanine energy transfer scaffold.

In this work, we designed and synthesized a heterobimetallic ruthenium(ii)-nickel(ii) complex, [Ru(bpy)2(phen-DPA)Ni](PF6)4 (Ru-Ni), as a highly selective phosphorescence probe for histidine. The probe exhibited weak emission at 603 nm because the phosphorescence of the Ru(ii) complex can be strongly quenched by the paramagnetic Ni(2+) ion. In the presence of histidine, reaction of Ru-Ni with histidine resulted in the release of nickel(ii) and an enhancement in the phosphorescence intensity at 603 nm. Ru-Ni showed high selectivity for histidine even in the presence of other amino acids and cellular abundant species. Cell imaging experimental results demonstrated that Ru-Ni is membrane permeable, and can be applied for visualizing histidine in live cells. More interestingly, Ru-Ni also can act as a novel reaction-based nuclear staining agent for visualizing exclusively the nuclei of living cells with a significant phosphorescence enhancement. In addition, the potential of the probe for biological applications was confirmed by employing it for phosphorescence imaging of histidine in larval zebrafish and Daphnia magna. These results demonstrated that Ru-Ni would be a useful tool for physiological and pathological studies involving histidine.