Highly selective fluorescence turn-on sensor for hydrogen sulfide and imaging in living cells

A displacement method of detecting hydrogen sulfide in aqueous media based on complex L-Cu ensemble is developed. Once combined with Cu2+, complex L-Cu displayed high specificity for sulfide anion. Among the various anions, only sulfide anion induce the revival of fluoresecence of compound I, which is quenched by Cu2+, resulting in turn-on type sensing sulfide anion. Complex L-Cu exhibits a highly sensitive fluorescent response toward S2- by releasing compound L to give a remarkable change with 20-fold fluorescence intensity enhancement under 2 equivalent of S2- added in Tris-HCl/ DMF (20 mM, 6/4, v/v), and also exhibits a dynamic response range for S2- from 5 x 10(-7) to 5 x 10(-6) M, with a detection limit of 0.18 mu M. In addition, the turn-on fluorescent change upon the addition of S2- is also applied in cell imaging. Published by Elsevier B.V.