An activatable fluorescent probe for imaging endogenous nitric oxide via the eNOS enzymatic pathway.

Nitric oxide (NO) is an essential cellular messenger molecule involved in various physiological and pathological processes. Thus, monitoring the dynamic presence of endogenous NO in living cells is of great significance. In this paper, we developed an activatable fluorescent nanoprobe BOD-NH-NP for endogenous NO detection. In the probe BOD-NH-NP, the fast responding reaction site towards NO, incorporating a BODIPY fluorescent dye with good optical features, enables the probe to be applied for the detection of endogenous NO via the eNOS enzymatic pathway in living cells and screening nitric oxide synthases (NOSs) inhibitors and agonists.