Bacterial infections can easily occur when patients mishandle
wounds
or eat moldy food. The prompt diagnosis of a bacterial infection could
effectively reduce the risk of possible anatomical damage. However,
non-invasive early detection of bacterial infections is difficult
to achieve due to the lack of favorable tools. Here, we designed two
hNQO1 fluorescent probes (RX2 and RX3) to
visualize bacterial infection after deep learning on the pathogenesis
of bacterial infection. RX2 and RX3 enable
early detection of bacterial infection and are verified to be, respectively,
suitable for fluorescence imaging (FLI) and photoacoustic imaging
(PAI) by comparing the signal-to-background ratio of both probes in
a mouse model of myositis caused by Escherichia coli infection. In view of the difference in penetration depth between
the two imaging modalities, we further applied RX2 for
FLI of E. coli-infected wounds and RX3 for PAI of E. coli-infected
inflammatory bowel disease, suggesting the great potential of both
probes for early diagnosis of bacterial infections.
Two‐photon (TP) imaging with a donor‐acceptor (D−A) type fluorophore is an emerging tool for bioimaging and sensing. However, current TP probes suffer from serious solvatochromic quenching in aqueous solution due to their strong intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) in excited states. In this work, based on solvatochromism reversal, we report a novel strategy to develop TP probes for bioimaging. Specifically, compared with the normal two‐photon probes that showed a fluorescence off with ICT suppressed, the novel probes exhibited strong fluorescence in the aqueous solution when their ICT was inhibited. This strategy not only provides a new way for the design of high‐performance TP probes, but also expands the biological analysis toolbox for use in living systems.
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