Design of a phosphinate‐based bioluminescent probe for superoxide radical anion imaging in living cells

Abstract

Superoxide radical anion (O ˙ ) as an important member of reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays a vital role both in physiology and pathology. Herein we designed and synthesized a novel phosphinate-based bioluminescence probe for O ˙ detection in living cells, which exhibited good sensitivity for capturing O ˙ at the nanomole level and high selectivity against other ROS. The probe was further found to be of low toxicity for living cells and was then successfully employed for sensing endogenous O ˙ by using phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA) as a traditional O ˙ stimulator in Huh7 cells. Moreover, the increasing production and use of nanoparticles, has given rise to many concerns and debates among the public and scientific authorities regarding their safety and final fate in biological systems. Herein it was found that mondisperse polystyrene particles could stimulate O ˙ generation in Huh7 cells. Overall, the probe was demonstrated to have a great potential as a novel bioluminescent sensor for detecting O ˙ in living cells. To our knowledge, this is the first small-molecule phosphinate-based bioluminescence probe that will open up great opportunities for unlocking the mystery of O ˙ in human health and disease.

Emergence of Nanoplastic in the Environment and Possible Impact on Human Health

“…179,180 A further study confirming that polystyrene particles are able to induce ROS production was conducted by Liu et al In their study they showed that polystyrene particles 500 nm in size could stimulate ROS generation in human liver cells. 181 Aside from polystyrene, an in vitro study using unmodified polyethylene particles with sizes ranging from 0.3 to 10 μm showed unequivocally that the plastic particles stimulated mice-derived macrophages to produce significant levels of cytokines such as IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α. 182 Furthermore, several studies of human patients have shown that normal usage of implants such as total joint replacements made of polyethylene can lead to the production of wear debris.…”

Impact of Microplastics and Nanoplastics on Human Health

“…Cationic polystyrene nanoparticles were shown to induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in mouse macrophages and lung epithelial cells via aggregation of misfolded protein, leading to autophagic cell death of RAW 264.7 mouse macrophages and BEAS-2B lung epithelial cells [127,128]. While, unmodified or functionalized polystyrene was shown to induce apoptosis in several human cell types, including primary human alveolar macrophages (MAC), primary human alveolar type 2 (AT2) epithelial cells, human monocytic leukemia cell line (THP-1), human immortalized alveolar epithelial type 1 cells (TT1), human colon carcinoma cells (Caco-2), and human lung cancer cells (Calu-3) [129][130][131][132]; and polystyrene nanoparticles were shown to regulate ROS via long non-coding RNAs (e.g., linc -61, linc-50, linc-9, and linc-2) in Caenorhabditis elegans [142].…”

A caged 2‐hydroxyethyl luciferin for bioluminescence imaging of nitroxyl in living cells

“…[22][23][24][25][26][27] In the firefly luciferase-luciferin BL system, firefly luciferase catalyzes its highspecific substrate (D-luciferin or 6 0 -aminoluciferin) to emit visible light with the assistance of ATP, O 2 and Mg 2+ . [28,29] Excitation light is not needed in this process, to avoid the inherent disturbances from fluorescence (e.g. photobleaching and autofluorescence), therefore, target signals can be collected with high sensitivity.…”