Visible Study of Mercuric Ion and Its Conjugate in Living Cells of Mammals and Plants

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Abstract
The investigation of mercuric ion and mercuric conjugate inside live specimens has drawn intense attention because of their cytotoxicity. The translocation, transportation, and distribution of Hg2+ inside either mammals or plants, however, are still invisible due to the lack of favorable fluorescent molecular sensors for Hg2+. Here, two sensors, 2,6-bis(4‘-peperazino-N‘-hydroxylethoxylethylene-1‘,8‘-naphthalimide)dimethylpyridine and 2,6-bis(4‘-peperazino-N‘-butyl-1‘,8‘-naphthalimide)dimethylpyridine, which were composed of nitrogen atoms of 2,6-bis(aminomethyl)pyridine as the ion receptor and the donor of photoinduced electron transfer, were applied to the cultured mammalian cells and plant cells. Their membrane permeability, low toxicity, slow bleaching/fading, and high selectivity and sensitivity to Hg2+ in a live cell rendered them attractive to become real-time and real-space sensors. For the first time, the transportation of Hg2+ cation and Hg2+ conjugate of cysteine was observed with the help of a fluorescence microscope. The chloroplast location of Hg2+ in transgenic tobacco was also visible.