Cell-Compatible Nanoprobes for Imaging Intracellular Phosphatase Activities.

Phosphatases play an important role in cell biology, but only a few probes are suitable for selectively imaging phosphatase activity in live cells, because the current probes require cell fixation or exhibit considerable cytotoxicity. Herein, we show that conjugating a d-peptide to a quinazolinone derivative generates cell-compatible, biostable probes for imaging the phosphatase activity inside live cells. Moreover, our results show that inhibiting ectophosphatases is a critical factor for imaging intracellular phosphatases. As the first example of using selective inhibitors to ensure intracellular function of molecular probes, this work illustrates a facile approach to design molecular probes for profiling the activities of enzymes in a spatial, selective manner in a complicated environment.