A highly specific rhodamine B based turn-on fluorescent probe for nitric oxide and application in living cells

Abstract

Abstract The design and synthesis of two rhodamine derivatives with the same luminescent group, which have an interesting “turn-on” fluorescent response toward NO and can be readily prepared through one-step reaction in acetonitrile. Of the two compounds, rh-NO-1 showed high selectivity for NO among various reactive oxygen/nitrogen species, accompanied by a 24-fold fluorescent enhancement. With an increase of the amount of NO from 0 to 100 μM, the linear correlation between the fluorescent intensity of rh-NO-1 at 600 nm and the concentration of NO was found. The probe rh-NO-1 had good sensitivity and the detection limit was as low as 36.8 nM. Upon addition of NO, rh-NO-1 had a clear response within 2 min. This was a colour change from colorless to pink, which was visible to the naked eye. In addition, both rh-NO-1 and its derivative can be used to detect NO in living cells.