A simple strategy for constructing PET fluorescent probe and its application in hypochlorite detection

It is great meaningful to develop a fast and efficient method for detecting hypochlorite (ClO−) owing to its importance in the immune system. In this work, we proposed a strategy to construct fluorescent probes for ClO− based on photoinduced electron transfer (PET) mechanism. According to the strategy, we developed four fluorescent probes named TPA-NO2, TPA-2NO2, TPB-NO2 and TPB-2NO2, and studied their detecting performances for hypochlorite. Among them, TPB-NO2 displayed the most obvious fluorescence changes towards ClO− with a rapid response (<90 s). The detection limit was calculated to be 0.36 μM. Moreover, probe TPB-NO2 was successfully used to detect ClO− in living cells and zebrafish. These results demonstrated the feasibility of our strategy and provided a guidance for developing more excellent probes in the future.