Red AIE Luminogens with Tunable Organelle Specific Anchoring for Live Cell Dynamic Super Resolution Imaging

Lysosomes and mitochondria play an important role in maintaining cell homeostasis. Visualizing the long-term activities of lysosomes and mitochondria on the nanometer scale in live cells is essential for further understanding their functions but remains challenging due to the limitations of existing fluorescent probes, such as aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect, limited signal-to-noise ratio from fluorescence "always on" in the process of targeting organelle and poor photobleaching resistance. Herein, two efficient red-emitting aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens are reported, which showed "off-on" fluorescence characteristic and specific lysosomes as well as mitochondria targeting capability. Owing to their AIE characteristics, a Stokes' shift larger than 100 nm, good biocompatibility, and excellent photostability, the AIE luminogens have been successfully utilized for high fidelity imaging of lysosomes and mitochondria. By virtue of these two probes, stimulated emission depletion (STED) images of dynamic lysosomal fusion and mitochondrial fission with a high resolution of 65.6 nm are obtained. Furthermore, the interactions between lysosomes and mitochondria in the process of mitophagy are recorded. This study also provides practical guidance for designing specific organelle targeting probes to support live cell dynamic super-resolution imaging.