Recent progress in the fluorescent probes for the specific imaging of small molecular weight thiols in living cells

Very recently, the development of fluorescent probes which are capable of specific imaging of Cys/Hcy/GSH in living cells has attracted great attention. The aim of this review is to highlight the representative examples of the specific thiol fluorescent probes reported from 2013 to 2014. However, in this review, we will restrict the discussion to specific thiol fluorescent probes developed based on organic fluorophores for bioimaging applications.