A Palette of Minimally Tagged Sucrose Analogues for Real‐Time Raman Imaging of Intracellular Plant Metabolism

Sucrose is the main saccharide used for long‐distance transport in plants and plays an essential role in energy metabolism; however, there are no analogues for real‐time imaging in live cells. We have optimised a synthetic approach to prepare sucrose analogues including very small (≈50 Da or less) Raman tags in the fructose moiety. Spectroscopic analysis identified the alkyne‐tagged compound 6 as a sucrose analogue recognised by endogenous transporters in live cells and with higher Raman intensity than other sucrose derivatives. Herein, we demonstrate the application of compound 6 as the first optical probe to visualise real‐time uptake and intracellular localisation of sucrose in live plant cells using Raman microscopy.