Fluorophore–nitroxide (profluorescent nitroxide) probes

Over the last decades, scientists have faced growing requirements in novel methods of fast and sensitive analysis of antioxidant status of biological systems, redox probing and radical trapping, biological molecules’ analysis, investigation of molecular dynamics, and convenient models for studies of photophysical and photochemical processes. This chapter presents a review on the use of tethered nitroxide–fluorophore molecules as probes of redox status, antioxidant activity, oxidative stress, and free radical reaction. In addition, these supermolecules have been proved to serve as tools for the study of molecular dynamics, intermolecular fluorescence quenching and electron transfer mechanism, photoswitching material and analytic reagents. Keeping all properties of spin and fluorescent probes, the dual fluorophore–nitroxide compounds (FNO•) possess important new advantages.