Near-Infrared Fluorescent Probe for Detection of Thiophenols in Water Samples and Living Cells

The development of probes for rapid, selective, and sensitive detection of the highly toxic thiophenols is of great importance in both environmental and biological science. Despite the appealing advantages of near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent detection, no NIR fluorescent probes have been reported for thiophenols to date. Using the chemical properties of thiophenols that are able to cleave sulfonamide selectively and efficiently under mild conditions, we herein report a dicyanomethylene-benzopyran (DCMB)-based NIR fluorescent probe for thiophenols. This probe features remarkable large Stokes shift and shows a rapid, highly selective, and sensitive detection process for thiophenols with significant NIR fluorescent turn-on responses. The potential applications of this new NIR fluorescent probe were demonstrated by the quantitative detection of thiophenol in real water samples and by fluorescent imaging of thiophenol in living cells.