Ervin Kovács’s publication “New GFP chromophores stiffened with a boron bridge: from synthesis to applications in fluorescence two-photon microscopy” (Organic Letters, 2025, xxx, xxx, 10.1021/acs.orglett.5c00284 by Attila Csomos, Brigitta Petrilla, Levente Cseri, Gábor Turczel, Arnold Steckel, Gitta Schlosser, Balázs Rózsa, Ervin Kovács, Zoltán Mucsi) was included in the March highlited publications of the Section of Chemical Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (https://mta.hu/vii-osztaly-a-honap-publikacioja).
A new set of azaborine-based fluorophores was developed, resembling the chromophore of the green fluorescent protein featuring a rigid structure provided by a boron bridge. The new fluorophores have a remarkable 100 nm Stokes-shift and high brightness. Zinc sensors useful for detecting high concentrations of zinc relevant in neuroscience were prepared to demonstrate the utility of the scaffold.