Ultrasensitive two-photon probes for rapid detection of -galactosidase during fruit softening and cellular senescence

Senescence is happening in every corner of the living organisms. beta-galactosidase (beta-gal) is one of the most important biomarkers during senescence in both plant and mammalian cells. Most beta-gal fluorescent probes were focused on bio-imaging, only a few probes were developed for the detection of beta-gal in fruit, and the probes that could detect beta-gal in both fruits and living cells were even less. Here, two beta-gal probes (TNap-beta-Gal and TBNap-beta-Gal) were synthesized, which can not only image the increase of beta-gal during both fruits softening and cellular senescence, but also prove that bananas are not suitable for storage in refrigerator and the subsequent accumulation of beta-gal still in lysosome of mammalian cells. In addition, TNap-beta-Gal was successfully applied to two-photon imaging of endogenous beta-gal in both hDPMSCs and tissues of human dental pulp for the first time.