A highly sensitive and selective fluorescence turn-on probe for the sensing of H2S in vitro and in vivo

A fluorescence turn-on probe, 2-butyl-1,3-dioxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzo[de]isoquinolin-6-yl 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulfonate (NT-SH), has been constructed for sensing of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). NT-SH exhibited excellent detection performance including favorable water solubility, low fluorescence background, high enhancement (45-fold), large linear response range (0–50 μM) and low detection limit (80.01 nM) for H2S in aqueous. In addition, the response mechanism of NT-SH for H2S was confirmed by the theoretical calculation and mass spectral analysis. More importantly, the imaging experiments of H2S in vitro and in vivo confirmed that NT-SH had low cytotoxicity, and favorable biocompatibility. In addition, it illustrated that NT-SH was able to detected exogenous H2S in living cells and zebrafish. These results suggested that NT-SH can be act as a potential molecular tool for detecting of H2S in aqueous solution, in vitro and in vivo.