Bright red-emitting pyrene derivatives with a large Stokes shift for nucleus staining

Abstract

A highly fluorescent red-emitting pyrene derivative was synthesized and found to exhibit a large Stokes shift (λ_em ≈ 610 nm, Δλ ∼ 130 nm, Δν ∼ 4597 cm^-1). The probe molecule showed remarkable selectivity to stain the nucleus in both live and fixed cells, with higher sensitivity than commercial dye DRAQ5.