A near infrared BODIPY-based lysosome targeting probe for selectively detection of carboxylesterase 1 in living cells pretreated with pesticides

Abstract A novel near-infrared BODIPY-based fluorescent probe MPBOD was designed and synthesized. MPBOD can be used to minitor carboxylesterase1 (CES1) activities in living cells. MPBOD has high selectivity to CES1 and its detection mechanism is based on the spontaneous hydrolysis of carboxylate bonds catalyzed by (CES1). Compared with the only few reported CES1 probes, MPBOD showed high sensitivity, low background interference, low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility. Additionally, MPBOD was successfully applied to detect carbamates pesticide (carbaryl) as well as monitor the real activities of CES1 in lysosome of HepG2 cells. This type of probe can be a promising tool to visualize many pathological processes because CES1 is involved in the biotransformation of drugs and poisons with ester groups.