rhodamine

thumb|Rhodamine core structure thumb|Rhodamine in water Rhodamine is a family of related dyes, a subset of the triarylmethane dyes. They are derivatives of xanthene. Important members of the rhodamine family are rhodamine 6G, Rhodamin WT, Texas Red (Sulforhodamin 101), rhodamine 123, and rhodamine B. They are mainly used to dye paper and inks, but they lack the lightfastness for fabric dyeing.

==Use== Aside from their major applications, they are often used as a tracer dye, e.g. to determine the rate and direction of flow and transport of water. Rhodamine dyes fluoresce and can thus be detected using fluorometers. Rhodamine dyes are used extensively in biotechnology applications such as fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and ELISA. Rhodamine 123 is used in biochemistry to inhibit mitochondrion function. Rhodamine 123 appears to bind to the mitochondrial membranes and inhibit transport processes, especially the electron transport chain, thus slowing down cellular respiration. It is a substrate of P-glycoprotein (Pgp), which is usually overexpressed in cancer cells. Recent reports indicate that rhodamine 123 may also be a substrate of multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP), or more specifically, MRP1.