A water-soluble boronate masked benzoindocyanin fluorescent probe for the detection of endogenous mitochondrial peroxynitrite in live cells and zebrafish as inflammation models

Abstract Endogenous peroxynitrite is highly reactive oxidant play significant roles in various physiopathological processes in living organisms. Therefore, sensing and monitoring of accurate detection of peroxynitrite specifically, is an immense challenge. To address this issue, we synthesized a water soluble, mitochondria-targeting “turn-on” fluorescent probe (BICBzBF) for the detection of mitochondrial peroxynitrite. BICBzBF (pale yellow) demonstrated high sensitivity and selectivity in fluorometric tracing of peroxynitrite over other ROS/RNS tested. This arylboronate-masked probe responds to peroxynitrite resulting in the corresponding phenol derivative; a strong fluorescence accompanied a change to red rose as observed by the naked eye. The probe responds to peroxynitrite within