A highly selective and ultrafast near-infrared fluorescent turn-on and colorimetric probe for hypochlorite in living cells.

Hypochlorous acid (HOCl)/hypochlorite (OCl ^- ), important reactive oxygen species, play essential roles in many physiological and pathological progresses. Accordingly, we developed a novel dicyanomethylene-4H-pyran (DCM)-based probe DCM-OCl for colorimetric and near-infrared fluorescent turn-on detection of OCl ^- . The probe exhibited excellent selectivity and sensitivity for OCl ^- over other bio-related analytes with a detection limit of 80 nM. The excellent selectivity of DCM-OCl for OCl ^- was ascribed to specific oxidative cleavage of the dimethylthiocarbamate (DMTC) recognition unit by OCl ^- . Moreover, DCM-OCl exhibited an ultrafast turn-on response (<3 s) to OCl ^- , potentially allowing real-time detection of OCl ^- . Furthermore, DCM-OCl was successfully used to image endogenous/exogenous OCl ^- in living cells.
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