{"doi":"10.1093/nar/gkad799","title":"Unprecedented enantio-selective live-cell mitochondrial DNA super-resolution imaging and photo-sensitizing by the chiral ruthenium polypyridyl DNA “light-switch”","abstract":"Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is known to play a critical role in cellular functions. However, the fluorescent probe enantio-selectively targeting live-cell mtDNA is rare. We recently found that the well-known DNA 'light-switch' [Ru(phen)2dppz]Cl2 can image nuclear DNA in live-cells with chlorophenolic counter-anions via forming lipophilic ion-pairing complex. Interestingly, after washing with fresh-medium, [Ru(phen)2dppz]Cl2 was found to re-localize from nucleus to mitochondria via ABC transporter proteins. Intriguingly, the two enantiomers of [Ru(phen)2dppz]Cl2 were found to bind enantio-selectively with mtDNA in live-cells not only by super-resolution optical microscopy techniques (SIM, STED), but also by biochemical methods (mitochondrial membrane staining with Tomo20-dronpa). Using [Ru(phen)2dppz]Cl2 as the new mtDNA probe, we further found that each mitochondrion containing 1-8 mtDNA molecules are distributed throughout the entire mitochondrial matrix, and there are more nucleoids near nucleus. More interestingly, we found enantio-selective apoptotic cell death was induced by the two enantiomers by prolonged visible light irradiation, and in-situ self-monitoring apoptosis process can be achieved by using the unique 'photo-triggered nuclear translocation' property of the Ru complex. This is the first report on enantio-selective targeting and super-resolution imaging of live-cell mtDNA by a chiral Ru complex via formation and dissociation of ion-pairing complex with suitable counter-anions.","journal":"Nucleic Acids Research","year":2023,"id":332128,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.948,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":405264,"name":"Chun‐Hua Huang","orcid":"0000-0001-7158-2149","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1058186,"name":"Jing Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-7537-810X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1058187,"name":"Zhu-Ying Yan","orcid":"0000-0002-6818-0728","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":766874,"name":"Miao Tang","orcid":"0000-0001-8460-6672","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":405268,"name":"Jie Shao","orcid":"0000-0001-9212-9685","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1058188,"name":"Kaiyong Cai","orcid":"0000-0001-9029-680X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":405269,"name":"Ben‐Zhan Zhu","orcid":"0000-0001-5484-4290","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":405266,"name":"Rong Huang","orcid":"0000-0003-2810-4269","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":76,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:09:30.139849Z","pmid":"37933856","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}