Two red-emission single and double 'arms' fluorescent materials stemed from 'one-pot' reaction for hydrogen sulfide vivo imaging

The gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has attracted attention in recent years for its contributions to human health and diseases. In this work, the design strategy relied on 'one-pot' by employing BODIPY 1 dye and P-hydroxybenzaldehyde afforded two key intermediates, then further reacted with NBD thus obtaining products 'single' and 'double' arms types molecules (BDP-N1 and BDP-N2). Firstly we concentrated on the comparative investigation their response abilities for hydrogen sulfide. The response mechanisms are all based on the selective thiolysis of 7-nitrobenzo[c-1,2,5] oxadiazole(NBD) moiety attached to the styryl-BODIPY scaffold by H2S. However, it is worth mentioned that double'arms'showed longer wavelength excitation and emission resulting from extended conjugation. Furthermore, these successes of intracellular imaging experiments in A549 cells indicated that the two probes are suitable for imaging of exogenous or endogenous hydrogen sulfide in living cells or living zebrafish.