A turn-on mitochondria-targeted near-infrared fluorescent probe with a large Stokes shift for detecting and imaging endogenous superoxide anion in cells

In this work, a new turn-on near-infrared fluorescent probe based on N, N-dimethylaniline as a donor and pyridinium group as an acceptor has been successfully constructed for superoxide anion detection, which exhibits a remarkable fluorescence enhancement with a low limit of detection and an excellent mitochondrial targeting effect in MCF-7 cells with good biocompatibility after treatment of lipopolysaccharide.