Alkoxy Tetrazine Substitution at a Boron Center: A Strategy for Synthesizing Highly Fluorogenic Hydrophilic Probes.

Strongly fluorogenic boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY)-tetrazine probes have been obtained by introducing an alkoxy tetrazine fragment at the boron center. The fluorescence signal from these probes strongly increases by up to 225-fold after reaction with bioorthogonal coupling partners, and the hydrophilicity of probes is improved, such that they are suitable for live-cell imaging.