Other Probes

Based on spectrochemistry and optical waveguide and measurement technology, fluorescent probe is a tool that selectively converts the chemical information of the analytical object into fluorescence signal easily measured by the analytical instrument. Fluorescent probes are usually composed of three parts: the recognition group, the fluorophore group and the connectome part.

Fluorescent probes have many advantages, which are embodied in the following aspects :(1) high sensitivity, wide dynamic response range, good biocompatibility and fast reaction speed;(2) compared with the traditional method, it has the advantages of simple operation, cheap price, selectivity and specificity, and can realize the detection of multiple or single target at the same time. In recent years, with the rapid development of fluorescence analysis technology, fluorescent probe has attracted more and more attention.

Fluorescent probes can be used in medicine, biology, environmental detection, biological imaging, chemistry, agricultural research and other fields.

Applications of Fluorescent Probes

Application in medicine

1. For the diagnosis and treatment of cancer

Fluorescent probes can be used for cancer detection. The survival rate after early cancer treatment is high, so early screening of cancer is important. Traditional early screening methods for cancer have limited detection depth and are prone to miss and misdetection. Fluorescent probes can specifically light up pathological cells and greatly improve the accuracy of cancer screening.

Fluorescent probes can be used in the field of cancer treatment to identify oncogenic sites, carry out precise drug delivery or surgery, and can be used in solid tumor surgery. Traditional solid tumor surgery relies on doctors' subjective evaluation to distinguish tumors from normal tissues, which is prone to excessive resection or tumor residue, which may cause damage to normal tissues or lead to cancer recurrence. The fluorescent probe can light up the cancerous tissue, helping doctors to accurately remove the tumor and greatly improving the success rate of solid tumor surgery.

2. Used for CO detection in human body

CO is involved in a series of physiological processes in human body, including anti-inflammatory response, anti-proliferative activity, neurotransmission, vascular smooth muscle and vasodilation.  In addition, abnormal CO levels were significantly associated with serious conditions such as respiratory disease, Alzheimer's disease, hypertension and heart failure. Therefore, it is of great significance to find reliable methods for detecting and sensing carbon monoxide in living systems.  CO fluorescence probe can detect the level of CO in human body. Compared with traditional CO detection methods, CO fluorescence probe detection method has high sensitivity and good biocompatibility.

Applications in biology

1. Glucose fluorescence probe

Glucose plays an important role in the life cycle of plants. At present, high performance liquid chromatography is the main method for the determination of glucose. However, this method has many disadvantages, such as time consuming, pretreatment, chemical reagents and high professional skills, and it can not be used for plant in vivo detection. In order to further study the physiological role of glucose in plants, it is urgent to develop an economical, rapid, simple, practical and highly selective method for the determination of glucose in plant cells. The high sensitivity and nondestructive flaw detection of glucose fluorescence probe can overcome the deficiency of HIGH performance liquid chromatography in the determination of glucose in plants.

2. Glutathione fluorescent probe

Glutathione is very important in organisms, and the ratio of free GSH to oxidized glutathione disulfide is an indicator of the corresponding enzyme activity and REDOX state of cells. Meanwhile, the abnormal concentration of GSH in organisms is closely related to aging, heart disease and cancer, because of their unique REDOX and nucleophilic properties. It also plays a very important role in maintaining REDOX equilibrium in biological systems. At present, the traditional detection methods mainly include capillary electrophoresis, spectrophotometry, high performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The high sensitivity and nondestructive characteristics of GSH fluorescence probe enable it to overcome the deficiency of traditional methods in detecting intracellular GSH content.

3. Viscosity probe

Intracellular viscosity is an important parameter in the cell microenvironment. It can reflect the diffusion rate of intercellular substances, thus reflecting the expression of biological behavior, and the generation of disease. Fluorescence imaging technology has been widely studied in recent years. It has the advantages of high sensitivity, low cost and high temporal and spatial resolution, so it can realize the detection of intracellular viscosity changes.

Application in environmental detection

Fluorescent probes have been widely used to detect various toxic and harmful heavy metal cations and anionic pollutants in the environment due to their advantages of simple structure, convenient synthesis, high selectivity, high sensitivity and outstanding anti-interference ability.

Application in biological imaging

Fluorescent probes can extract disease-related information and maintain high sensitivity and resolution in highly complex biological systems. In particular, near-infrared absorption fluorescent probes and emitted fluorescent molecules have deep tissue penetration and minimal absorption in hemoglobin, myoglobin and other tissues, making them good imaging tools for biological tissues.

For example, fluorescent probes for imaging bacteria. Bacteria play an irreplaceable role in life, food fermentation, antibiotics and pollutant degradation are closely related to bacteria. However, there are also some bacteria that can seriously threaten human health and cause large-scale infectious diseases. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop strategies that can accurately monitor bacteria. The fluorescent probe technique for bacterial imaging has the characteristics of non-invasive, high specificity and high sensitivity, and has been widely used in bacterial detection.

Application in chemical pharmaceutical field

In the field of chemistry and pharmacy, fluorescent probes have important applications, such as some new organic small molecule fluorescent compounds, which can be used in light therapy.  These new fluorescent compounds glow under laser light and heat up, causing biological cells to warm up and kill tumor cells, thereby curing them.

Application in agricultural research

In conclusion, fluorescent probes with high selectivity, high specificity, high sensitivity, safety and low cost are playing an increasingly important role in the design, screening and development of new green pesticides, promoting the development of green agriculture, ensuring human health and ecological balance. At present, a large number of fluorescent probes have been applied to the detection of pesticide, heavy metal and solvent residues.

In addition, there are many functional factors that need to be considered and challenged by scientists. For example. How to make fluorescent probes highly specific to mark specific biological targets in different growth and development stages of pests, so as to help find new green pesticide targets. How to study the reproductive and metabolic processes of various insects with fluorescent probes. How to use fluorescent probes to study and reveal the mechanism of pesticide resistance of pathogenic bacteria and pests.