Novel Visual Perspective for Tracking of Larval Development, Aging and Antiaging Drugs Screening by Fluorescent Sensing MsrA

Senescence is observed in various tissues during different physiological and pathological events such as tissue remodeling and disorders related aging. Senescent cells suffer from a decline in methionine sulfoxide reductase (MsrA), which is intimately linked to cell proliferation and longevity. Monitoring MsrA may contribute to senescence research in larval development and age-related disorders. However, only a limited number of MsrA fluorescent probes have been reported, and none of them have been applied to respond to MsrA specifically and recognize senescent cells. This project developed a novel fluorescent probe SOMP with high sensitivity (low detection limit, 8.9 ng/mL) and specificity (less interference of MsrB2 and MsrB3) to recognize MsrA. Cell proliferation and larval development of zebrafish can be evaluated with SOMP by monitoring MsrA. Moreover, the robust probe was successfully shown to monitor the process of aging by multiple aging models, which is also verified by immunostaining and flow cytometry. In addition, SOMP can be successfully used for high-throughput screening of MsrA-related antiaging native drugs at the cellular level. Curcumin’s antiaging effects were found to be linked to MsrA-mediated redox pathways for the first time. We believe that the probe SOMP and its interesting findings could offer significant insights for future research on research on cell proliferation, larval development, aging, and evaluating antiaging drugs.