Derivatizing merocyanine dyes to balance their polarity and viscosity sensitivities for protein aggregation detection.

Protein misfolding and aggregation processes involve local polarity and viscosity fluctuation. Herein we modulated the polarity and viscosity sensitivities of merocyanine dyes to detect protein aggregation. We demonstrated how structural modulation balanced these two fluorescence sensitivities and affected the detection of misfolded and aggregated proteins.