A versatile probe for serum albumin and its application for monitoring wounds in live zebrafish

Serum albumins perform various biological functions in bioorganisms, and abnormal levels of serum albumin are predictors of many diseases; contrary to the various approaches developed for the detection of serum albumins in blood and urine samples, limited tools are available for tracing and exploring endogenous serum albumins in living bioorganisms. Specifically, fluorescent probes have not been used for the exploration of endogenous serum albumins in zebrafish. Herein, we presented a versatile fluorescent probe (C7H) that highly specifically interacted with the site I of serum albumins. We succeeded in developing C7H as a visualized tool for tracing endogenous serum albumins in living larval zebrafish. Furthermore, C7H could be used as a fluorescent probe for the real-time monitoring of the wound area in larval zebrafish. Our results suggest that the larval zebrafish has a strong self-repair capacity for wound areas. Thus, C7H could be an efficient probe for studying wound healing in live zebrafish. Moreover, C7H can significantly expand the further understanding of wound healing in zebrafish, which may also promote the research on wound healing in human beings.