Recent advances in fluorescent probes for the detection of reactive oxygen species

Abstract

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have captured the interest of many researchers in the chemical, biological, and medical fields since they are thought to be associated with various pathological conditions. Fluorescent probes for the detection of ROS are promising tools with which to enhance our understanding of the physiological roles of ROS, because they provide spatial and temporal information about target biomolecules in in vivo cellular systems. ROS probes, designed to detect specific ROS with a high selectivity, would be desirable, since it is now becoming clear that each ROS has its own unique physiological activity. However, dihydro-compounds such as 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein (DCFH), which have traditionally been used for detecting ROS, tend to react with a wide variety of ROS and are not completely photostable. Some attractive fluorescent probes that exhibit a high degree of selectivity toward specific ROS have recently been reported, and these selective probes are expected to have great potential for elucidating unknown physiological mechanisms associated with their target ROS. This review focuses on the design, detection mechanism, and performance of fluorescent probes for the detection of singlet oxygen ((1)O(2)), hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)), hydroxyl radicals ((.)OH), or superoxide anion (O(2) (-.)), a field in which remarkable progress has been achieved in the last few years.

A comparative study of fluorescent singlet oxygen probes in plant leaves

“…Fluorescent probes, in combination with imaging techniques can provide both temporal and spatial information on a target molecule in vivo. Recent reviews provide excellent summaries of new developments [14,15], however, being focused on medical applications, these did not include all available probes and also missed some important aspects of fluorescent 1 O 2 imaging in plants. Plants under oxidative stress yield a variety of ROS, therefore it is essential that the probe is selective to 1 O 2 .…”

Simple quantitative detection of mitochondrial superoxide production in live cells

“…There is increasing evidence (based mostly on experiments derived from isolated mitochondria) suggesting that mitochondrial dysfunction and interrelated intramitochondrial generation of superoxide anion and other reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS and RNS) are also implicated in the pathophysiological processes associated with aging, cancer, neurodegenerative and inflammatory disorders, diabetes, and diabetic complications [6][7][8][9]. The recognition of the pivotal role of the mitochondria in the generation of ROS rekindled significant interest in the development of methods to assess the mitochondrial superoxide generation, which was largely hampered by the lack of a sensitive and specific assay [10][11][12]. Recently, a novel fluoroprobe MitoSOX Red (MitoSOX) was introduced for selective detection of superoxide in the mitochondria of live cells, and was validated with fluorescent microscopy [11].…”

Rational design of a fluorescent hydrogen peroxide probe based on the umbelliferone fluorophore

“…14,15 A recent review has summarized the current state of this field very well. 16 Each of the reported probes has its own advantages and disadvantages. An ideal probe should (1) be specific to the ROS of interest; (2) have the appropriate physicochemical properties to allow for permeation across membrane barriers and to allow certain solubility in water; (3) give off a strong and easily detectable reporting signal upon encountering the appropriate ROS, (4) have the property of turning on the signal upon encountering the appropriate ROS instead of turning off; and (5) easily synthesized from readily available starting materials.…”