Coptisine acts as a nucleolus fluorescent probe in vitro

Hui Li; Shuangshuang An; Jing Li; Xiukun Cui; Mingli Wang; Fengling Yuan; Jing Zhang; Weikai Guo; Yanzhong Hu

doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2024.151194

Coptisine acts as a nucleolus fluorescent probe in vitro

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2024 Dec 15:744:151194. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2024.151194. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Hui Li¹, Shuangshuang An¹, Jing Li¹, Xiukun Cui¹, Mingli Wang¹, Fengling Yuan¹, Jing Zhang¹, Weikai Guo¹, Yanzhong Hu²

Affiliations

¹ Joint National Laboratory for Antibody Drug Engineering, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
² Joint National Laboratory for Antibody Drug Engineering, Henan University, Kaifeng, China; Kaifeng Key Lab for Cataract and Myopia, Institute of Eye Disease, Kaifeng Central Hospital, Kaifeng, China. Electronic address: hyz@henu.edu.cn.

PMID: 39706054
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2024.151194

Abstract

Coptisine (COP) is a natural protoberberine isoquinoline alkaloid that is isolated from Coptis chinensis and exhibits a variety of pharmacological activities, such as the inhibition of tumor growth, bacterial infection, inflammation and oxidative stress. In this study, COP penetrated and produced fluorescent signals in living tumor cell lines, primary MEF cells and polyformaldehyde-fixed cells. The fluorescent signal was detected at a wavelength of 488 nm. The fluorescent signal of COP was observed predominantly in the nucleoli and colocalized with nucleolus fibrillarin and B23. The fluorescence intensity of COP was associated with tumor malignancy. Compared with cells with high fluorescent signals, cells with low fluorescent signals were highly malignant. Taken together, these data suggest that COP can function as a nucleolus probe and a probe candidate for distinguishing tumor cell malignancy.

Keywords: Cancer heterogeneity; Cancer stem cell; Coptisine; Fluorescent probe; Nucleolus.