Rational designed benzochalcone-based fluorescent probe for molecular imaging of hydrogen peroxide in live cells and tissues

•Novel fluorescent probes based on benzochalcone fluorophore were designed and synthesized.•The probes FD-1 and FD-2 exhibited satisfactory selectivity and sensitivity for discrimination of H2O2.•The probe FD-2 has faster response rate and higher sensitivity than FD-1.•The probe FD-2 showed good imaging capability in living cells and tissues with low cytotoxicity.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), a member of reactive oxygen species (ROS), usually acts as a significant oxidative stress marker in some diseases for its abnormal expression. Due to the merits of non-invasive and high selectivity, fluorescent probe has been proved to be an efficient method for H2O2 detection. Herein, we presented two novel boronate probes FD-1 and FD-2, in which the C-B bonds are well suitable for high selective detection of H2O2. Notably, these two probes were based on 4-hydroxybenzochalcone fluorophore, which exhibits excellent fluorescent properties through the intramolecular hydrogen bond. The results demonstrated that these two probes displayed satisfactory sensitivity and selectivity to H2O2, and probe FD-2 displayed faster response rate to H2O2 than FD-1. Importantly, FD-2 was successfully applied to image H2O2 in living cells and tissues, indicating probe FD-2 has great potential to monitor the H2O2 in biological system.

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