A simple, water soluble flavone-based fluorescent probe for fast detection of Cys

The important biological roles of thiols have attracted strong interest in developing useful chemical tools for detecting biothiols. In this work, a flavone-based fluorescent probe for the selective detection of Cys was developed by taking advantage of a pyridinium acrylate as a useful scaffold for fast recognition of biothiol. The probe had good solubility in aqueous solution and displayed good sensitivity and rapid response toward Cys with a large Stokes shift. Moreover, the probe Could be used as a useful tool for rapid identification of endogenous Cys in living cells. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.