Synthesis and Evaluation of Europium Complexes that Switch On Luminescence in Lysosomes of Living Cells

Starck, Matthieu; Fradgley, Jack D.; Pal, Robert; Zwier, Jurriaan M.; Lamarque, Laurent; Parker, David

doi:10.1002/chem.202003992

Synthesis and Evaluation of Europium Complexes that Switch On Luminescence in Lysosomes of Living Cells

Starck, Matthieu; Fradgley, Jack D.; Pal, Robert; Zwier, Jurriaan M.; Lamarque, Laurent; Parker, David

Authors

Matthieu Starck

Jack D. Fradgley

Professor Robert Pal robert.pal@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Jurriaan M. Zwier

Laurent Lamarque

Professor David Parker david.parker@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Abstract

A set of four luminescent Eu(III) complexes bearing an extended aryl‐alkynylpyridine chromophore has been studied, showing very different pH‐dependent behaviour in their absorption and emission spectral response. For two complexes with p K a values of 6.45 and 6.20 in protein containing solution, the emission lifetime increases very significantly following protonation. By varying the gate time during signal acquisition, the ‘switch‐on’ intensity ratio could be optimised and enhancement factors of between 250 to 1330 were measured between pH 8 and 4. The best behaved probe showed no dependence on the concentration of common endogenous cations, selected reductants and serum albumin and was examined in live cell imaging studies and used to monitor time‐dependent lysosomal acidification, for which the increase in observed image brightness due to acidification was found to be a factor of 50 in NIH‐3T3 cells.

Citation

Starck, M., Fradgley, J. D., Pal, R., Zwier, J. M., Lamarque, L., & Parker, D. (2021). Synthesis and Evaluation of Europium Complexes that Switch On Luminescence in Lysosomes of Living Cells. Chemistry - A European Journal, 27(2), 766-777. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202003992

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 11, 2020
Online Publication Date	Dec 15, 2020
Publication Date	Jan 7, 2021
Deposit Date	Nov 17, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Mar 2, 2021
Journal	Chemistry - A European Journal
Print ISSN	0947-6539
Electronic ISSN	1521-3765
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	27
Issue	2
Pages	766-777
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202003992