Designing a green-emitting viscosity-sensitive 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) probe for plasma membrane viscosity imaging

Artūras Polita; Milda Stancikaitė; Rokas Žvirblis; Karolina Maleckaitė; Jelena Dodonova-Vaitkūnienė; Sigitas Tumkevičius; Arun Prabha Shivabalan; Gintaras Valinčius

doi:10.1039/D3RA04126C

Designing a green-emitting viscosity-sensitive 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) probe for plasma membrane viscosity imaging†

Artūras Polita,*^a Milda Stancikaitė,^b Rokas Žvirblis,^c Karolina Maleckaitė,

^b Jelena Dodonova-Vaitkūnienė,

^d Sigitas Tumkevičius,

^d Arun Prabha Shivabalan^a and Gintaras Valinčius^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Institute of Biochemistry, Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University, Saulėtekio Av. 7, Vilnius, LT-10257, Lithuania
E-mail: arturas.polita@gmc.vu.lt

^b Center of Physical Sciences and Technology, Saulėtekio Av. 3, Vilnius, LT-10257, Lithuania

^c Life Sciences Center, Institute of Biotechnology, Vilnius University, Saulėtekio Av. 7, Vilnius, LT-10257, Lithuania

^d Institute of Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Geosciences, Vilnius University, Naugarduko St. 24, Vilnius, LT-03225, Lithuania

Abstract

Viscosity is a key characteristic of lipid membranes – it governs the passive diffusion of solutes and affects the lipid raft formation and membrane fluidity. Precise determination of viscosity values in biological systems is of great interest and viscosity-sensitive fluorescent probes offer a convenient solution for this task. In this work we present a novel membrane-targeting and water-soluble viscosity probe BODIPY-PM, which is based on one of the most frequently used probes BODIPY-C₁₀. Despite its regular use, BODIPY-C₁₀ suffers from poor integration into liquid-ordered lipid phases and lack of water solubility. Here, we investigate the photophysical characteristics of BODIPY-PM and demonstrate that solvent polarity only slightly affects the viscosity-sensing qualities of BODIPY-PM. In addition, with fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), we imaged microviscosity in complex biological systems – large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs), tethered bilayer membranes (tBLMs) and live lung cancer cells. Our study showcases that BODIPY-PM preferentially stains the plasma membranes of live cells, equally well partitions into both liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered phases and reliably distinguishes lipid phase separation in tBLMs and LUVs.

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3RA04126C
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 19 Jun 2023
Accepted: 20 Jun 2023
First published: 26 Jun 2023
This article is Open Access

Download Citation

RSC Adv., 2023,13, 19257-19264

Permissions

Request permissions

Designing a green-emitting viscosity-sensitive 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) probe for plasma membrane viscosity imaging

A. Polita, M. Stancikaitė, R. Žvirblis, K. Maleckaitė, J. Dodonova-Vaitkūnienė, S. Tumkevičius, A. P. Shivabalan and G. Valinčius, RSC Adv., 2023, 13, 19257 DOI: 10.1039/D3RA04126C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

RSC Advances

Designing a green-emitting viscosity-sensitive 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) probe for plasma membrane viscosity imaging†

Abstract

Supplementary files

Article information

Download Citation

Permissions

Designing a green-emitting viscosity-sensitive 4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) probe for plasma membrane viscosity imaging

Social activity

Search articles by author

Spotlight

Advertisements