A novel long-wavelength fluorescent probe for selective detection of hydrogen sulfide in living cells†
Abstract
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) plays a vital role as a critical biological messenger in numerous physiological and pathophysiological processes. It is necessary to detect H2S to obtain important physiological and pathological information. Here, a novel long-wavelength probe (LC-H2S) was developed based on the selective thiolysis reaction of dinitrophenyl ether. LC-H2S is nearly non-fluorescent (ΦF = 0.032), but the reaction product (LC-OH) emits strong fluorescence at 644 nm when excited at 571 nm (ΦF = 0.228). The long wavelength of LC-H2S makes it less susceptible to background fluorescence from biological matrices and to photo damage on fluorescence imaging of H2S. With the advantages of the turn-on probe for H2S including high sensitivity, high selectivity, good biocompatibility and low toxicity, the probe has been successfully used for imaging H2S in living cells.