A Highly Efficient Chemiluminescence Probe for the Detection of Singlet Oxygen in Living Cells

Abstract

Singlet oxygen is among the reactive oxygen species (ROS) with the shortest life-times in aqueous media because of its extremely high reactivity. Therefore, designing sensors for detection of ¹ O₂ is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks in the field of molecular probes. Herein, we report a highly selective and sensitive chemiluminescence probe (SOCL-CPP) for the detection of ¹ O₂ in living cells. The probe reacts with ¹ O₂ to form a dioxetane that spontaneously decomposes under physiological conditions through a chemiexcitation pathway to emit green light with extraordinary intensity. SOCL-CPP demonstrated promising ability to detect and image intracellular ¹ O₂ produced by a photosensitizer in HeLa cells during photodynamic therapy (PDT) mode of action. Our findings make SOCL-CPP the most effective known chemiluminescence probe for the detection of ¹ O₂ . We anticipate that our chemiluminescence probe for ¹ O₂ imaging would be useful in PDT-related applications and for monitoring ¹ O₂ endogenously generated by cells in response to different stimuli.

Keywords: chemiluminescence; dioxetanes; live-cell imaging; molecular probes; singlet oxygen.