Imaging mitochondrial reactive oxygen species with fluorescent probes: Current applications and challenges

Abstract

Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a key element in the regulation of several physiological functions and in the development or progression of multiple pathological events. A key task in the study of mitochondrial ROS is to establish reliable methods for measuring the ROS level in mitochondria with high selectivity, sensitivity, and spatiotemporal resolution. Over the last decade, imaging tools with fluorescent indicators from either small-molecule dyes or genetically encoded probes that can be targeted to mitochondria have been developed, which provide a powerful method to visualize and even quantify mitochondrial ROS level not only in live cells, but also in live animals. These innovative tools that have bestowed exciting new insights in mitochondrial ROS biology have been further promoted with the invention of new techniques in indicator design and fluorescent detection. However, these probes present some limitations in terms of specificity, sensitivity, and kinetics; failure to recognize these limitations often results in inappropriate interpretations of data. This review evaluates the recent advances in mitochondrial ROS imaging approaches with emphasis on their proper application and limitations, and highlights the future perspectives in the development of novel fluorescent probes for visualizing all species of ROS.

Keywords::

• mitochondria
• reactive oxygen species
• imaging
• fluorescent

Acknowledgments

We thank Drs Meng Ouyang, Xinghua Qin, Da Jing, Qinyi Wang, and Xianhua Wang for their critical comments and suggestions.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.

This work was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB531204), the State Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81030005), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81270301).