A fluorescent probe for imaging hydrogen peroxide in ovarian cancer cells

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an oxidative stress marker in various disease. The local concentration of H2O2 is related to cancer, a reliable and simple assay detecting H2O2 level in cells is therefore critical. Here, we have developed a fluorescence probe PEP-Npb1-Cy3 which can be used to detect H2O2 in living ovarian cancer cells. The probe is developed based on employing the oxide reactivity of 1, 8-naphthalimide boric acid towards H2O2, which yields a turn-on fluorescence signal and exhibits high selectivity and sensitivity. Our collective results support the applicability of PEP-Npb1-Cy3 as a powerful tool for imaging both exogenous and endogenous H2O2-involving biological events in ovarian cancer cells, which may have further biomedical applications.