Highly selective relay recognition of hydrogen sulfide and Hg(II) by a commercially available fluorescent chemosensor and its application in bioimaging

•The perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) was firstly developed as a high selective probe for hydrogen sulfide.•The probe–hydrogen sulfide adduct was used to successive chemosensor for Hg2+.•The probe can be regenerated by Hg2+.

A simple fluorescent probe, perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride, which is a commercially available organic pigment intermediate was reported as a fluorescence chemosensor for Hg(II). This probe can high selectively recognize hydrogen sulfide in water:DMSO (1:1 (v/v), 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) buffer, pH 7.4) solutions. Namely, with addition of various anions, only HS− can induce a turn on green fluorescence. The mechanism is that perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride was hydrolyzed and subsequently displaced when meeting with hydrogen sulfide. More interestingly, probe–hydrogen sulfide can successively detect Hg2+. The detection mechanism was based on Hg2+ snatching up sulfur group of probe–HS− adduct, which makes the probe regenerative. And their reaction products were proved by ESI-MS. Their potential application in bioimaging was also illustrated.

Graphical abstractA commercially available organic pigment intermediate, perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) was firstly developed as a high selective probe for hydrogen sulfide, and probe–hydrogen sulfide adduct was used to be a successive chemosensor for Hg2+ in HEPES–DMSO solution. Its potential application to bioimaging was also illustrated.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide