Imaging of formaldehyde in plants with a ratiometric fluorescent probe

The fluorescence monitoring of formaldehyde in real environmental samples and live plant tissues is of great importance for physiological and pathological studies. However, there is a lack of suitable chemical tools to directly trace and measure the formaldehyde activity in bio-systems, and developing effective and, in particular, selective sensors for mapping formaldehyde in live tissues still remains a great challenge. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that the ratiometric fluorescence monitoring of formaldehyde in live plant tissues is achieved with a newly developed ratiometric fluorescent probe, FAP, which effectively eliminated interference from other comparative analytes. Live tissue analyses reveal that FAP can potentially detect exogenous and endogenous formaldehyde in live Arabidopsis thaliana tissues, exposing a potential application for biological and pathological studies of formaldehyde.