A Novel Fast and Sensitive Fluorescent Hydrogen Sulfide Probe with Large Stokes Shift for Imaging Living Cells and Zebrafish

Abstract

As an important physiological gas transmitter, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) plays an important role in the immune system and is closely related to the occurrence of many diseases, such as cirrhosis, arterial disease, down syndrome, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. In recent years, H2S probes have been reported frequently, but they still have some shortcomings, such as slow response time, small Stokes shift and insufficient sensitivity. Herein, a novel H2S probe NM–H2S was designed and synthesized. The probe NM–H2S emitted red fluorescence at 625 nm, and had a large Stokes shift (130 nm), which significantly reduces the background interference of the probe NM–H2S in biological imaging. The probe NM–H2S showed remarkable fluorescence color change, rapid response (within 10 min) and high sensitivity (0.4 μM detection limit) to the analyte H2S. Not only that, the probe NM–H2S showed good selectivity in a series of chemical analytes. In addition, the probe NM–H2S was also capable of detecting H2S in Hela cells and zebrafish by turning on fluorescence in biological applications.