Design, synthesis and performance evaluation of a fluorescent probe for the detection of sulfur dioxide in vitro and intracellularly

Abstract

In this work, a red-emissive fluorescent probe CouS-CN based on a thiophene-coumarin scaffold was developed for the detection of SO₂. The probe exhibits high sensitivity, broad applicability, strong anti-interference performance, and good stability toward various ions. Due to low cytotoxicity, CouS-CN was successfully applied for the fluorescence imaging of exogenous SO₂ in living HeLa cells.