PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kahraman, Sevim
AU  - Manna, Debasish
AU  - Dirice, Ercument
AU  - Maji, Basudeb
AU  - Small, Jonnell
AU  - Wagner, Bridget K
AU  - Choudhary, Amit
AU  - Kulkarni, Rohit N
TI  - Harnessing reaction-based probes to preferentially target pancreatic β-cells and β-like cells
AID  - 10.26508/lsa.202000840
DP  - 2021 Apr 01
TA  - Life Science Alliance
PG  - e202000840
VI  - 4
IP  - 4
4099  - http://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/4/4/e202000840.short
4100  - http://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/4/4/e202000840.full
SO  - Life Sci. Alliance2021 Apr 01; 4
AB  - Highly sensitive approaches to target insulin-expressing cells would allow more effective imaging, sorting, and analysis of pancreatic β-cells. Here, we introduce the use of a reaction-based probe, diacetylated Zinpyr1 (DA-ZP1), to image pancreatic β-cells and β-like cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells. We harness the high intracellular zinc concentration of β-cells to induce a fluorescence signal in cells after administration of DA-ZP1. Given its specificity and rapid uptake by cells, we used DA-ZP1 to purify live stem cell-derived β-like cells as confirmed by immunostaining analysis. We tested the ability of DA-ZP1 to image transplanted human islet grafts and endogenous mouse pancreatic islets in vivo after its systemic administration into mice. Thus, DA-ZP1 enables purification of insulin-secreting β-like cells for downstream applications, such as functional studies, gene-expression, and cell–cell interaction analyses and can be used to label engrafted human islets and endogenous mouse islets in vivo.