Development of an activatable red emissive fluorescent probe for imaging hydrogen disulfide upregulation in living cells and zebrafish

摘要

As a member of reactive sulfur molecules, hydrogen polysulfide (H2Sn) plays a vital role in cell protection, antioxidative stress and regulation of redox signaling. The highly selective and sensitive detection of H2Sn was still challenging due to its special nucleophilic and electrophilic reactivity. By incorporating phenyl 2-(benzoylthio) benzoate into semi-naphthofluorescein, we developed a novel red emissive fluorescent probe SNAFL-H2Sn for the detection of a representative H2Sn (e. g. H2S2). The addition of H2S2 would rapidly trigger SNAFL-H2Sn to produce significant turn-on fluorescence signal changes at 626 nm with a linear response over a range of 2-30 mu M and a detection limit of 16 nM. SNAFL-H2Sn was capable of mapping exogenous and endogenous H2S2 in living cells and zebrafish. Moreover, SNAFL-H2Sn was applied to detect endogenous H2S2 under atorvastatin stimulation. The present study demonstrated that SNAFL-H2Sn potentially served as a promising tool for interrogating H2Sn functions in biological systems.

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