Imino Phenolic Benzene‐1,3,5‐tricarbohydrazide Conjugate as a AIEgen‐Based Fluorescent Probe for the Detection and Bioimaging of Lipid Droplets in Living Cells**

Abstract

AbstractA new aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) based fluorescent probe (L) has been designed and synthesized by integrating the salicylaldehyde into benzene‐tricarbohydrazide via a condensation reaction for the detection and image of neutral lipid droplets in live cells. The single crystal X‐ray diffraction (XRD) structure of L has been established. The L exhibited solvent polarity‐dependent aggregation‐induced enhanced fluorescence emission at 535 nm with a very large Stokes shift ~203 nm in a binary mixture of water and THF (9 : 1, v/v %) and this is further observed by visually under UV light of 365 nm. The microscopy study revealed that L exhibits aggregation properties reflected in their morphological features around 1.12 μm to 1.68 μm particle size in H2O‐THF mixture (9 : 1). The biological applicability of probe (L) for the detection of lipid droplets in L929 live cells has been demonstrated and these results support the potential applications of L in order to use for the lipid droplets related diagnosis.