Fluorescent Carbon Dots Shuttling between Mitochondria and the Nucleolus for in Situ Visualization of Cell Viability

Monitoring cell viability plays a vital role in fundamental aspects of pathology, medicine, and biology. Mitochondria and the nucleolus are involved in regulating cell viability in many biological processes, such as mitochondrial autophagy, apoptosis, and cell growth. Thus, exploring the variational cell viability reflecting with mitochondria and the nucleolus is very significant and highly required. Herein, in this work, a kind of fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) capable of shuttling between mitochondria and the nucleolus was synthesized through a simple microwave-assisted strategy and utilized for in situ visualization of cell viability. Meanwhile, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced cell damage and ascorbic acid-mediated cell protective effects were successfully visualized. Moreover, these CDs demonstrate an intrinsic character of wash-free imaging that makes them preferable for the monitoring of cell viability. We believe that the developed CDs have a great potential to be used as a robust tool to facilitate the progress in cell viability-related medicine, biology, and pathology studies.