A highly selective and sensitive 3-hydroxyflavone-based colorimetric and fluorescent probe for hydrogen sulfide with a large Stokes shift

A 3-hydroxyflavone-based colorimetric and fluorescence probe for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has been developed with high sensitivity and excellent selectivity. This probe was designed based on the mechanism that H2S selectively cleaved the NBD (7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole) ether moiety in this probe and therefore release the fluorophore, 3-hydroxyflavone. The addition of H2S to the solution of probe 1 resulted in a green fluorescence and an obvious color change from colorless to pink, indicating that this probe can serve as a colorimetric and fluorescent dual probe for H2S. Furthermore, this probe displays a rapid response and reaches to a plateau within 5 min. It also exhibits a 146 nm Stokes shift and a low detection limit (20 nM, based on S/N=3) in detecting H2S. Importantly, practical utility of this probe for the selective detection of H2S in living cells has been successfully demonstrated. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.