TY - JOUR A1 - Näreoja, T A1 - Deguchi, T A1 - Christ, S. A1 - Peltomaa, R A1 - Prabhakar, N A1 - Fazeli, E A1 - Perälä, N A1 - Rosenholm, J A1 - Arppe, Riika A1 - Soukka, T A1 - Schäferling, Michael T1 - Ratiometric Sensing and Imaging of Intracellular pH Using Polyethylenimine-Coated Photon Upconversion Nanoprobes JF - Analytical Chemistry N2 - Measurement of changes of pH at various intracellular compartments has potential to solve questions concerning the processing of endocytosed material, regulation of the acidification process, and also acidification of vesicles destined for exocytosis. To monitor these events, the nanosized optical pH probes need to provide ratiometric signals in the optically transparent biological window, target to all relevant intracellular compartments, and to facilitate imaging at subcellular resolution without interference from the biological matrix. To meet these criteria we sensitize the surface conjugated pH sensitive indicator via an upconversion process utilizing an energy transfer from the nanoparticle to the indicator. Live cells were imaged with a scanning confocal microscope equipped with a low-energy 980 nm laser excitation, which facilitated high resolution and penetration depth into the specimen, and low phototoxicity needed for long-term imaging. Our upconversion nanoparticle resonance energy transfer based sensor with polyethylenimine-coating provides high colloidal stability, enhanced cellular uptake, and distribution across cellular compartments. This distribution was modulated with membrane integrity perturbing treatment that resulted into total loss of lysosomal compartments and a dramatic pH shift of endosomal compartments. These nanoprobes are well suited for detection of pH changes in in vitro models with high biological background fluorescence and in in vivo applications, e.g., for the bioimaging of small animal models. KW - PH sensing KW - Upconversion KW - Nanoparticles KW - Fluorescecne imaging PY - 2017 UR - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b03223 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b03223 SN - 0003-2700 SN - 1520-6882 VL - 89 IS - 3 SP - 1501 EP - 1508 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington AN - OPUS4-39083 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -