A Water‐Soluble Multifunctional Probe for Colorimetric Copper Sensing, Lysosome Labelling and Live‐Cell Imaging

Abstract We report a water‐soluble fluorescence and colorimetric copper probe ( LysoBC1 ); this system can also serve for lysosome labeling and for the dynamic tracking of Cu 2+ in living cells. The sensing mechanism takes advantage of the synergic action by the following three components: i) a lysosome targeting unit, ii) the spirolactam ring‐opening for the selective copper chelation and iii) the metal‐mediated hydrolysis of the rhodamine moiety for fluorescence enhancement. In aqueous environment the molecule acts as a fluorescent reversible pH sensor and as colorimetric probe for Cu 2+ at physiological pH; the hydrolysis of the copper targeting unit resulted in a 50‐fold increase of the fluorescence intensity. Most importantly, in vitro cell analyses in undifferentiated (SH SY5Y) and differentiated (d‐SH SY5Y) neuroblastoma cells, LysoBC1 is able to selectively accumulate into lysosome while the copper binding ability allowed us to monitor intracellular copper accumulation into lysosome.