A highly sensitive, fast responsive and reversible naphthalimide-based fluorescent probe for hypochlorous acid and ascorbic acid in aqueous solution and living cells

It is very important to exploit real-time, ultrasensitive and specific visualization detection methods for hypochlorous acid/hypochlorite (HOCl/ClO–) in biological systems as they are the guardians of the human immune system against pathogens invasion. In our work, we designed a novel reversible naphthalimide-based fluorescent probe NAP-OH to recognize HClO/ClO– with a unique selective colorimetric and fluorescent response, a short response time (<8 s) and a high sensitivity (10.3 nM). In addition, NAP-OH exhibits a novel on-off-on fluorescence response to ClO–/ascorbic acid (AA) with good cycle stability. The fluorescence signal is quenched because HClO/ClO– oxidizes the subunit of NAP-OH to the segment 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-oxo-piperidinium in NAP-O, which can be reduced by AA with the recovery of fluorescence. Finally, the confocal fluorescence imaging has been performed, which proves that NAP-OH can satisfactorily monitor intracellular endogenous and exogenous HClO/AA redox cycles.