Mitochondria are essential organelles in eukaryotic cells and act as the energy powerhouse and biosynthetic compartment. Fluorescent dyes are widely used powerful molecular tools for analytical sensing and optical imaging. Low photostability, short excitation and emission wavelengths, and aggregation-induced quenching effects restrict the application of traditional commercial mitochondrial fluorescent probes for bioimaging. In this study, using rhodamine as the acceptor and phenothiazine as the donor, we synthesized a novel mitochondrial-targeted near infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe, MIT-PZR. Due to low cytotoxicity, great photostability and high specificity for mitochondria targeting, MIT-PZR has enormous potential for cell imaging. Furthermore, with a sizeable Stokes shift (emission peak at 705 nm), MIT-PZR penetrated tissues providing stable red fluorescence for imaging in vivo. The histological assessment of various tissues after treatment with MIT-PZR indicated that it has good biocompatibility. Thus, MIT-PZR is a promising mitochondrial NIR fluorescent probe for future application in clinical diagnosis and modern biological research.

线粒体是真核细胞中必不可少的细胞器，并充当能量源和生物合成区室。荧光染料被广泛用于分析感测和光学成像的强大分子工具。低的光稳定性，短的激发和发射波长以及聚集诱导的猝灭效应限制了传统的商业线粒体荧光探针在生物成像中的应用。在这项研究中，以若丹明为受体，吩噻嗪为供体，我们合成了靶向线粒体的新型近红外（NIR）荧光探针MIT-PZR。由于细胞毒性低，光稳定性强和针对线粒体的高特异性，MIT-PZR在细胞成像方面具有巨大潜力。此外，随着较大的斯托克斯位移（在705 nm处有发射峰），体内。MIT-PZR处理后各种组织的组织学评估表明，它具有良好的生物相容性。因此，MIT-PZR是一种有希望的线粒体NIR荧光探针，可在临床诊断和现代生物学研究中进一步应用。