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

Due to the importance of hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) in physiology and pathology, the development of fluorescence probes for the detection of H 2 S has attracted extensive attention of researchers. We developed a H 2 S fluorescence probe ( DCN-S ) based on dicyanoisopentanone using dithioether and ester groups as the reaction sites. Under the nucleophilic substitution of H 2 S, 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 H 2 S, 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.