A new benzo-bodipy based fluorescent probe for the highly sensitive detection of hypochlorous acid and its application in the living cells and zebrafish imaging

Due to the highly significant biological activity of hypochlorous acid, the monitoring of its concentration in vivo has received extensive attention. In this work, a photoinduced electron transfer (PeT) based benzo-bodipy fluorescent probe BBy-T has been developed for the rapid, sensitive, and selective detection of HClO in an aqueous solution. Based on the HClO-specific oxidation reaction, BBy-T exhibited a distinct fluorescence turn-on response to HClO with a remarkable Stokes shift (84 nm), immediate response (less than 20 s), and low detection limit (13.7 nM). In addition, the bioimaging results indicated that the probe BBy-T could be applied to real-time fluorescence imaging of living HeLa cells as well as living zebrafish.

Automated summary

In this work, a novel fluorescent probe BBy-T based on photoinduced electron transfer (PeT) was developed for the rapid, sensitive, and selective detection of hypochlorous acid (HClO) in an aqueous solution. The probe exhibited a distinct fluorescence turn-on response to HClO with a remarkable Stokes shift, immediate response, and low detection limit. Bioimaging results demonstrated that the probe could be used for real-time fluorescence imaging of living HeLa cells and zebrafish.