An effective NIR fluorescent molecular tool to monitor cancer cell migration derived from inhibiting autophagy-induced cellular inflammation

Autophagy, as a cellular self-protection mechanism, is closely related to the body's inflammatory response and cancer cell migration. Studies have shown that changes in lysosomal polarity can serve as good indicators of intracellular autophagy and inflammation. It can be seen that there may be a certain relationship between the occurrence of cancer cell migration and the polarity of lysosomes. To this end, we developed a novel near-infrared lysosome polarity probe (NIR-TCF) to explore the relationship between the three deeply. Here, NIR-TCF has a strong ICT effect and high sensitivity to slight polarity changes in emission shifts at 720 nm. In addition, NIR-TCF has low toxicity and can image intracellular autophagy and the relationship between autophagy and inflammation clearly. More importantly, NIR-TCF was used to assess autophagy inhibition-induced inflammation-driven cancer cell migration firstly. [Display omitted] •A novel solvochromic NIR probe NIR-TCF was constructed.•NIR-TCF has good biocompatibility and localizes to lysosomes successfully.•NIR-TCF can image the relationship between cellular inflammation and autophagy.•NIR-TCF enables real-time staining and monitoring of cancer cell metastasis.