Selective Mitochondrial Protein Labeling Enabled by Biocompatible Photocatalytic Reactions inside Live Cells

Biocompatible reactions are powerful tools to probe protein functions in their native environment. Due to the difficulty of penetrating the live-cell membrane and the complex intracellular environment, the biocompatible reactions inside live cells are challenging, especially at the subcellular level with spatial resolution. Here we report the first biocompatible photocatalytic azide conjugation reaction inside live cells to achieve the mitochondria-selective proteins labeling. The organic dyes acridine orange, fluorescein, and rhodamine 123 were developed as the biocompatible photocatalysts for the proteins labeling with aryl azides, which yielded benzazirines and ketenimines from triplet nitrenes for the protein nucleophilic residue trapping. The photocatalytic azide conjugation reaction with rhodamine 123 selectively labeled the mitochondrial proteins via the organic dye’s mitochondrial localization. In response to the mitochondrial stress induced by rotenone, this photocatalytic azide-promoted labeling method mapped the dynamic mitochondrial proteome changes with high temporal-spatial precision and identified several potential mitochondrial stress-response proteins for the first time. The high temporal-spatial precision of this photocatalytic azide-promoted labeling method holds excellent potential for intracellular protein network investigations.