Simple turn-on fluorescent probe for ultrafast and highly selective detection of hydrogen sulfide in aqueous solutions

So Yeon Bong; Zion Song; Kamalpreet Kaur; Narinder Singh; Yea-In Park; Junsoo Park; Doo Ok Jang

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2024.124925

Simple turn-on fluorescent probe for ultrafast and highly selective detection of hydrogen sulfide in aqueous solutions

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2024 Dec 15:323:124925. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2024.124925. Epub 2024 Aug 5.

Authors

So Yeon Bong¹, Zion Song¹, Kamalpreet Kaur², Narinder Singh³, Yea-In Park⁴, Junsoo Park⁴, Doo Ok Jang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Wonju 26493, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab 140001, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab 140001, India. Electronic address: nsingh@iitrpr.ac.kr.
⁴ Division of Biological Science and Technology, Yonsei University, Wonju 26493, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Wonju 26493, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: dojang@yonsei.ac.kr.

PMID: 39106719
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2024.124925

Abstract

5H-Benzimidazo[1,2-c]quinazoline-6-thione (BI-QT), was synthesized as a benzimidazole-based probe to detect H₂S. BI-QT exhibits a fluorescent "turn-on" response in DMSO/H₂O (9:1, HEPES 10 mM, pH 7.4) upon the addition of H₂S. The BI-QT probe can determine micromolar (0-600 µM) H₂S concentrations in aqueous systems, with a detection limit of 1.12 µM. Interestingly, BI-QT exhibited an ultrafast response to H₂S, with maximum intensity achieved almost instantly when exposed to H₂S. BI-QT is largely unaffected by pH and responds reliably over the wide 4-11 pH range, which highlights its applicability to various physiological scenarios. UV-vis, fluorescence, and ¹H NMR spectroscopic analyses investigated the sensing mechanism. The practicality of the probe was demonstrated using water samples and living cells.

Keywords: Fluorescence; Hydrogen sulfide; Probe; Ultrafast detection.