A highly sensitive fluorescent probe for hydrogen sulfide based on dicyanoisophorone and its imaging in living cells

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Due to the importance of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in physiology and pathology, the development of fluorescence probes for the detection of H2S has attracted extensive attention of researchers. We developed a H2S fluorescence probe (DCN-S) based on dicyanoisopentanone using dithioether and ester groups as the reaction sites. Under the nucleophilic substitution of H2S, disulfide bond of DCN-S was broken. Then the probe changed into dicyanoisophorone derivative and emitted an orange fluorescence band from 530 nm to 700 nm (centred 580 nm). Upon response for H2S, DCN-S exhibited high sensitivity (88 nM detection limit) and large stokes shift (155 nm). Importantly, the probe also was successfully used for endogenous and exogenous imaging of living cells.