A redox reversible endoplasmic reticulum targeted fluorescent probe for revealing the redox status of living cells

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is one of the most important organelles in cells, which is involved in protein synthesis, folding and orderly transport. Redox balance is the key to its normal function. In this work, we designed and synthesized an endoplasmic reticulum targeted fluorescent probe N-Se with selenomorpholine as redox reversible detection moiety. N-Se could selectively response to ClO- within only 8 s with LOD of 28.8 nM. Furthermore, such response is reversible on the regulation of GSH. Confocal fluorescence imaging confirmed the excellent endoplasmic reticulum targeting ability of N-Se. Thus, it could real-time monitor the dynamic changes of redox status in endoplasmic reticulum through the variation of fluorescence intensity.