Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of trimethine cyanine dyes as fluorescent probes for the detection of tau fibrils in Alzheimer's disease brain and olfactory epithelium.

Shedding light on grey matter: Fluorescent trimethine cyanines were evaluated as imaging probes for neurofibrillary tangles in post-mortem brain sections of Alzheimer's disease patients. These probes bind to neurofibrillary tangles with high contrast and selectivity over amyloid β plaques.