Recent Progress in Fluorescent Probes for the Detection of Biothiols

Intracellular thiols, such as cysteine (Cys), homocysteine (Hey) and glutathione (GSH), play crucial roles in maintaining biological systems. In last decade, developing small molecule probes for selective and sensitive detection of thiols under physiological conditions have attracted great interest. Fluorescent and colorimetric sensors are classified into two types of reactions according to their mechanism of reaction with thiols, including the reaction with mercapto group, the reaction with mercapto and amino group. Therefore, in this review we provide a general overview of the selected recent research involving the design and application of biological thiol-selective chemosensors.