Abstract
Zinc (Zn) based fluorescent metal complexes have gained increasing attention due to their non-toxicity and high brightness with marked fluorescent quantum yield (QY). However, they have scarcely been employed in super-resolution microscopy (SRM) for studying live cells and in vivo dynamics of lysosomes. Here, we present an NIR emissive highly photostable Zn-complex as multifaceted fluorescent probe for the long-term dynamical distribution of lysosomes in various cancerous and non-cancerous cells in live condition and in vivo embryogenic evolution in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Apart from the normal fission, fusion, kiss and run, the motility and the exact location of lysosome at each point were mapped precisely. A notable difference in the lysosomal motility in the peripheral region in between cancerous and non-cancerous cells were distinctly observed which is attributed to the difference in viscosity of cytoplasmic environment. On the other hand, along with super-resolved structure of the smallest size lysosome (~ 77 nm) in live C. elegans, the complete in vivo embryogenic evolution of lysosomes and lysosome-related organelles (LROs) closely for 16 hours at different stages starting from a single cell to a fully matured C. elegans was captured.