Fluorescent antimicrobial peptides are promising structures for in situ, real-time imaging of fungal infection. Here we report a fluorogenic probe to image Aspergillus fumigatus directly in human pulmonary tissue. We have developed a fluorogenic Trp-BODIPY amino acid with a spacer-free C-C linkage between Trp and a BODIPY fluorogen, which shows remarkable fluorescence enhancement in hydrophobic microenvironments. The incorporation of our fluorogenic amino acid in short antimicrobial peptides does not impair their selectivity for fungal cells, and enables rapid and direct fungal imaging without any washing steps. We have optimized the stability of our probes in human samples to perform multi-photon imaging of A. fumigatus in ex vivo human tissue. The incorporation of our unique BODIPY fluorogen in biologically relevant peptides will accelerate the development of novel imaging probes with high sensitivity and specificity.

中文翻译：

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抗菌肽中无间隔物的BODIPY氟用于人体组织中真菌感染的直接成像。

荧光抗菌肽是真菌感染原位实时成像的有前途的结构。在这里，我们报告了一种荧光探针，可直接在人肺组织中成像烟曲霉。我们开发了一种发荧光的Trp-BODIPY氨基酸，它在Trp和BODIPY氟之间具有无间隔的CC键，在疏水微环境中显示出显着的荧光增强。在短的抗菌肽中掺入我们的荧光氨基酸不会损害其对真菌细胞的选择性，并且无需任何清洗步骤即可进行快速直接的真菌成像。我们优化了我们的探针在人类样品中的稳定性，以在离体人类组织中对烟曲霉进行多光子成像。