A turn-on fluorescent probe for simultaneous sensing of cysteine/homocysteine and hydrogen sulfide and its bioimaging applications

Publication date: 1 September 2018
Source:Talanta, Volume 187
Author(s): Fengzao Chen, Deman Han, Yuan Gao, Heng Liu, Shengfu Wang, Fangyu Zhou, Kaibin Li, Siqi Zhang, Wujun Shao, Yanling He
Hydrogen sulfide and biothiol molecules such as Cys, Hcy, and GSH play important roles in biological systems. Exploiting a probe to simultaneously detect and distinguish them is quite important. In this work, a versatile fluorescent probe that can simultaneously detect and discriminate Cys/Hcy and H2S is reported. The probe easily prepared by the Knoevenagel condensation of cyanoacetylindole with chlorinated phenyl-propenal possessed three potential sites that could react with biothiols and H2S. This probe also exhibited rapidity, high selectivity, and sensitivity for Cys/Hcy and H2S with distinct optical signal changes. The probe was able to display obvious fluorescence enhancement at 480 nm for Cys/Hcy and unique absorbance enhancement at 500 nm for H2S. We also demonstrated that the probe can be successfully applied to image Cys in MCF-7 cells suing a confocal fluorescence microscope.

Graphical abstract

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