A de novo strategy to develop NIR precipitating fluorochrome for long-term in situ cell membrane bioimaging

Significance Long-term in situ imaging of biomolecules on the cell membrane was significant for studying the physiological processes emitted from cell signaling and cell adhesion. Thus, to develop an efficient tool to realize in situ imaging membrane-associated biomolecules, we herein proposed a de novo strategy to construct an antidiffusion probe by integrating a fluorochrome (HYPQ) characterized by strong hydrophobicity and low lipophilicity, with an enzyme substrate. Then, benefiting from the antidiffusion property of the constructed probe HYPQG, long-term in situ imaging of membrane-associated enzyme GGT was successfully realized. This work may provide an efficient strategy for constructing universal antidiffusion fluorescent probes to realize long-term in situ bioimaging.