Development of dual-fluorophore and dual-site multifunctional fluorescent probe for detecting HClO and H2S based on rhodamine-coumarin units

HClO and H2S commonly coexist in organisms and act synergistically to maintain the redox dynamic balance in vivo; however, it is difficult to trace precisely and simultaneously HClO and H2S by single recognition-type fluorescent probes. In this paper, a novel probe (MTRN) was designed for detecting specifically HClO and H2S with dual-emission property by using an acrylate and a phenyl isothiocyanate as recognition sites. MTRN possessed outstanding performances including ultrasensitivity (LOD = 3.39 nM), high specificity and short response time (<2 min) for HClO under excitation of 530 nm with the fluorescence’s color change from dark to red. Moreover, upon treating with H2S, the fluorescence peak centered at 488 nm of MTRN enhanced obviously within 1 min and color changed from colorless to blue, the LOD was found to be 0.13 µM. The possible reaction mechanism for HClO and H2S in CH3CN/PBS (9/1, v/v) was substantiated via 1H NMR and HRMS. Above all, MTRN was successfully used to detect HClO and H2S in HeLa cells and made into test strips to detect HClO and H2S.