Nitric oxide (NO) is a ubiquitous cellular messenger molecule in the cardiovascular, nervous, and immune systems. Mitochondrion is the main area where endogenous NO is synthesized by inducible NOS enzymes in mammalian cells. Thus, real-time monitoring NO in mitochondria is very meaningful for NO chemical biology. Although a variety of fluorescent probes for NO have been successfully developed, they are not suited for detecting mitochondrial NO because none of them can specifically localize in mitochondria. Herein, Mito-Rh-NO, the first mitochondria-targetable “turn-on” fluorescent probe for NO, has been developed through attaching a triphenylphosphonium to a rhodamine spirolactam. The characteristics of this probe are as following: (1) Mito-Rh-NO exhibits high sensitivity toward NO. In solution, Mito-Rh-NO responds to NO by significant fluorescence enhancement up to 60-fold, and its NO detection limit is as low as 4.0 nM. (2) The NO sensing of Mito-Rh-NO is highly selective, which will not interfere with the other reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. (3) Mito-Rh-NO has a low cytotoxic effect: after being treated with 10 μM Mito-Rh-NO for 24 h, the survival rate is higher than 90%. (4) Mito-Rh-NO specifically localizing in mitochondria: colocalization experiment of Mito-Rh-NO and Rh 123, a typical mitotracker, shows the merged fluorescent microcopy image with a high Pearson’s colocalization coefficient 0.92 and overlap coefficient 0.99. (5) Mito-Rh-NO demonstrates high applicability for real-time monitoring of mitochondrial NO in live cells. Both the exogenous NO released by the donor NOC13 and endogenous NO generated in cells under stimulation have been visualized under confocal microscopy.

A lysosome-specific and two-photon fluorescent probe, Lyso-NINO, demonstrates high selectivity and sensitivity toward NO, lower cytotoxicity, and perfect lysosomal localization. With the aid of Lyso-NINO, the first capture of NO within lysosomes of macrophage cells has been achieved using both two-photon fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry.