A novel near-infrared fluorescent platform with good photostability and the application for a reaction-based Cu2+ probe in living cells

•We had constructed a novel photostable near-infrared fluorescent dye CSCN.•A reaction-based Cu2+ NIR probe CSCN–Cu based on CSCN was then designed.•CSCN–Cu owned a higher fluorescence enhancement than coordination-based probes.•CSCN–Cu can be used for imaging Cu2+ in living cells.

Most of the near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent copper ion probes are coordination-based, and the fluorescence enhancement is between 10 and 20 folds. Herein, a novel NIR fluorescent dye named CSCN with excellent photostability and a reaction-based Cu2+ NIR probe named CSCN–Cu were reported. CSCN exhibited good photostability toward photo irradiation. CSCN–Cu showed lower background fluorescent interference and over 40-fold fluorescence enhancement in NIR region, it also exhibited good selectivity toward Cu2+ in Hepes solution. Biotic experiments demonstrated that CSCN–Cu possessed low toxicity and successfully imaged Cu2+ in living cells under the conditions performed.

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