Development of H2S and HClO dual-responsive fluorescent probe for cancer recognition

We designed and synthesized a dual-responsive fluorescent probe MB-N-NAP to detect H2S and HClO simultaneously for precise cancer recognition. The probe can concurrently monitor variations in cellular concentrations of H2S and HClO with a fast response (in seconds), high sensitivity (detection limits: H2S = 0.535 μM, HClO = 2.74 μM), high selectivity, and strong anti-interference. These outstanding properties of MB-N-NAP enabled us to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells successfully. More importantly, MB-N-NAP could specifically recognize liver cancer HepG2 cells from other hepatocarcinoma cells (Hep3B and Huh7), which offers great potential for the accurate cancer diagnosis.