Ratiometric Fluorescent Probe for Vicinal Dithiol-Containing Proteins in Living Cells Designed via Modulating the Intramolecular Charge Transfer-Twisted Intramolecular Charge Transfer Conversion Process

Vicinal dithiol-containing proteins (VDPs) play a significant role in maintaining the cellular redox homeostasis and are implicated in many diseases. To provide new chemical tools for VDPs imaging, we report here a ratiometric fluorescent probe CAsH2 for VDPs using 7-diethylaminiocoumarin as the fluorescent reporter and cyclic 1,3,2-dithiarsenolane as the specific ligand. CAsH2 shows peculiar dual fluorescence emission from the excited intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) states in aqueous media. However, upon selective binding of protein vicinal dithiols to the trivalent arsenical of CAsH2, the probe was brought from the polar water media into the hydrophobic protein domain, causing the excited state ICT to TICT conversion to be restricted; as a result, an increase from the ICT emission band and a decrease from the TILT emission band were observed simultaneously. The designed probe shows high selectivity toward VDPs over other proteins and biological thiols. Preliminary experiments show that CAsH2 can be used for the ratiometric imaging of endogenous VDPs in living cells. So far as we know, this is a rare example of the ratiometric fluorescent probe designed' via modulating the ICT-TICT conversion process, which provides a new way to,construct various protein-specific ratiometric fluorescent probes.