Rational design and comparison of two pyrimidine-based ultra-fast response fluorescent probes from 2-hydroxy-3-pinanone for monitoring Fe2+ homeostatic systems in living organisms

Fe2+ plays a crucial role in maintaining physiological activities in the human body. However, abnormal Fe2+ levels can induce a variety of diseases. Therefore, the detection of Fe2+ in living organisms has attracted much attention in recent years. In this paper, we constructed two high-performance fluorescent probes based on 2-Hydroxy-3-pinanone for different channels detection of exogenous and endogenous Fe2+. These two probes could achieve the specific recognition of Fe2+ through introducing the nitrogen oxide group in the probes, which can serve as a highly reactive site for Fe2+. Both probes possessed very fast response times (<35 s), good sensitivity and selectivity, and low cytotoxicity for the detection of Fe2+. The exploration of detection conditions suggested that both probes can be well applied to the fluorescence imaging of Fe2+ in living cells and zebrafish. In addition, both probes successfully monitored the abnormal levels of Fe2+ in HeLa cells in a model of iron ferroptosis disease. These excellent properties enable these two probes to has highly promising for studying related diseases induced by Fe2+ abnormalities.