Two-photon fluorescence imaging of intracellular hydrogen peroxide with chemoselective fluorescent probes

Abstract. We present the application of two-photon fluorescence (TPF) imaging to monitor intracellular hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production in brain cells. For selective imaging of H2O2 over other reactive oxygen species, we employed small-molecule fluorescent probes that utilize a chemoselective boronate deprotection mechanism. Peroxyfluor-6 acetoxymethyl ester detects global cellular H2O2 and mitochondria peroxy yellow 1 detects mitochondrial H2O2. Two-photon absorption cross sections for these H2O2 probes are measured with a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser in the wavelength range of 720 to 1040 nm. TPF imaging is demonstrated in the HT22 cell line to monitor both cytoplasmic H2O2 and localized H2O2 production in mitochondria. Endogenous cytoplasmic H2O2 production is detected with TPF imaging in rat astrocytes modified with d-amino acid oxidase. The TPF H2O2 imaging demonstrated that these chemoselective probes are powerful tools for the detection of intracellular H2O2

Development of Neh2-Luciferase Reporter and Its Application for High Throughput Screening and Real-Time Monitoring of Nrf2 Activators

SummaryThe NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a key transcriptional regulator of antioxidant defense and detoxification. To directly monitor stabilization of Nrf2, we fused its Neh2 domain, responsible for the interaction with its nucleocytoplasmic regulator, Keap1, to firefly luciferase (Neh2-luciferase). We show that Neh2 domain is sufficient for recognition, ubiquitination, and proteasomal degradation of Neh2-luciferase fusion protein. The Neh2-luc reporter system allows direct monitoring of the adaptive response to redox stress and classification of drugs based on the time course of reporter activation. The reporter was used to screen the Spectrum library of 2000 biologically active compounds to identify activators of Nrf2. The most robust and yet nontoxic Nrf2 activators found—nordihydroguaiaretic acid, fisetin, and gedunin—induced astrocyte-dependent neuroprotection from oxidative stress via an Nrf2-dependent mechanism