Rational design of a fast and selective near-infrared fluorescent probe for targeted monitoring of endogenous nitric oxide.

The real-time monitoring of nitric oxide (NO) at the subcellular level is still a great challenge. To attain this goal, we developed a fast and selective near-infrared (NIR)fluorescent probe for the targeted tracing of endogenous NO. This probe possesses vital features for the real-time detection of intracellular NO including a significant turn-on NIR response, high specificity, and a fast response by a controlled photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process, which is applicable to the real-time monitoring of endogenous NO in mitochondria.