A lipid droplet-targeted probe for imaging of lipid metabolism disorders during mitochondrial myopathy.

Lipid metabolism is closely related to various biological processes in cells. The accumulation of Lipid droplets (LDs) is a typical manifestation of certain metabolic diseases, such as mitochondrial myopathy, which shows a significant increase in LDs. The accumulation of LDs can exacerbate the progression of disease, and lysosomes selectively degrade LDs to cope with this phenomenon. Visualizing lipid metabolism disorders and the interaction between LDs and other organelles is of great significance for the diagnosis and understanding of various physiological processes within cells in diseases. In this work, we synthesized two novel LD fluorescent probes and screened the best PDM, which exhibited stable fluorescence performance and strong photobleaching resistance in complex environments. The dynamics of intracellular LDs were tracked using PDM, and abnormal lipid metabolism within mitochondrial myopathy cells was visualized. This provides new tools and perspectives for studying LD dynamics and diagnosing mitochondrial myopathy.