Synthesis of a Far‐Red Photoactivatable Silicon‐Containing Rhodamine for Super‐Resolution Microscopy

The rhodamine system is a flexible framework for building small‐molecule fluorescent probes. Changing N‐substitution patterns and replacing the xanthene oxygen with a dimethylsilicon moiety can shift the absorption and fluorescence emission maxima of rhodamine dyes to longer wavelengths. Acylation of the rhodamine nitrogen atoms forces the molecule to adopt a nonfluorescent lactone form, providing a convenient method to make fluorogenic compounds. Herein, we take advantage of all of these structural manipulations and describe a novel photoactivatable fluorophore based on a Si‐containing analogue of Q‐rhodamine. This probe is the first example of a “caged” Si‐rhodamine, exhibits higher photon counts compared to established localization microscopy dyes, and is sufficiently red‐shifted to allow multicolor imaging. The dye is a useful label for super‐resolution imaging and constitutes a new scaffold for far‐red fluorogenic molecules.