Development of 4-hydrazinyl-7-nitrobenzofurazan as a fluorogenic probe for detecting malondialdehyde in biological samples

•4-Hydrazinyl-7-nitrobenzofurazan (NBDH) is developed as a fluorescent probe for malondialdehyde (MDA).•The reaction between NBDH and MDA yields a highly emissive pyrazole derivative.•NBDH demonstrates a good selectivity and sensitivity for MDA.•The proposed probe proves to be able to detect MDA in biological fluids.

Malondialdehyde (MDA) is a critical product of polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation and represents a common biomarker of oxidative stress. In this study, we have developed a fluorogenic MDA probe, 4-hydrazinyl-7-nitrobenzofurazan (NBDH). The reaction between NBDH and MDA in acidic conditions yields a highly fluorescent product, 4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole derivative (NBD-P1). The MDA detection range of our probe NBDH falls between 0.1 and 20 μM, and the corresponding detection limit amounts to 7.2 nM (3δ). NBDH also demonstrates a high selectivity toward MDA over other aldehydes and biologically relevant molecules, and proves to be an excellent MDA assay in biological fluids.

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