Designing a Red-Emitting Viscosity-Sensitive BODIPY Fluorophore for Intracellular Viscosity Imaging

Viscosity imaging at a microscopic scale can provide important information about biosystems, including the development of serious illnesses. Microviscosity imaging is achievable with viscosity-sensitive fluorophores, the most popular of which are based on the BODIPY group. However, most of the BODIPY probes fluoresce green light, whereas the red luminescence is desired for the imaging of biological samples. Designing a new viscosity probe with suitable spectroscopic properties is a challenging task because it is difficult to preserve viscosity sensitivity after modifying the molecular structure. Here we describe how we developed a new red-emitting, viscosity-sensitive, BODIPY fluorophore BP-PH-2M-NO₂ that is suitable for reliable intracellular viscosity imaging of lipid droplets in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The design of BP-PH-2M-NO₂ was aided by DFT calculations that allowed a successful prediction of the viscosity sensitivity of fluorophores before synthesis. In summary, we report a new red viscosity probe possessing monoexponential fluorescence decay that makes it attractive for lifetime-based viscosity imaging.