An aniline bearing hemicyanine derivative serves as a mitochondria selective probe

Mitochondria play key roles in a variety of pathologies, such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Because of this, the development of mitochondria staining probes has attracted great attention. In the current study, we designed, prepared and explored the properties of the hemicyanine derivative, HCA-Mito, bearing an aniline moiety. The results show that this substance serves as a mitochondria staining probe. HCA-Mito, which is insensitive to pH and has a low cytotoxicity, shows a high coincidence with the mitochondria specific dyes, MitoTracker Red and MitoTracker Deep Red. More importantly, the fibrous network structure of mitochondria is clearly stained by using HCA-Mito.