A purine-based fluorescent probe for H₂S detection and imaging of cells

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is a gas with a toxic odor that plays an irreplaceable role in physiological activities within the mammalian body. Therefore, it is important to do the distribution and quantitative detection of H₂S in mammalian cells. In this paper, a fluorescence probe (EDPH) based on purine scaffold was designed and synthesized with high sensitivity and good selectivity. H₂S induced ether bond breakage in EDPH, resulting in a significant redshift of the absorption band (from 370 nm to 500 nm) with a Stokes shift of 130 nm. After the addition of H₂S, the fluorescence intensity of EDPH showed a good linear correlation with the concentration of H₂S, which enabled the quantitative detection of H₂S with a low limit of detection (41 nM). Finally, the EDPH was applied to the cellular Hele, and the probe has good cellularity imaging capability for the detection of H₂S in living systems.