Target-Binding Accelerated Response for Sensitive Detection of Basal H 2 O 2 in Tumor Cells and Tissues via a Dual-Functional Fluorescence Probe.

Aberrant production of H ₂ O ₂ is involved in cancer. The levels of H ₂ O ₂ are significantly higher in tumor cells than in normal cells. It is important to develop fluorescent probes to image basal H ₂ O ₂ selectively in tumor cells. So far, a cancer cell-targeting probe to image basal H ₂ O ₂ has not been reported. Thus, we developed a fluorescent probe, BBHP , which contains benzil as a H ₂ O ₂ -recognition site and biotin as a target binding motif for the selective and sufficient detection of H ₂ O ₂ in tumor cells. BBHP enables a selective fluorescence turn-on response to H ₂ O ₂ . The binding of the probe with biotin receptors can greatly accelerate the fluorescence response to H ₂ O ₂ . As a result, BBHP can sufficiently image basal H ₂ O ₂ in biotin receptor-positive cancer cells and tumor tissues. Finally, BBHP was successfully applied to discriminate between cancerous and normal tissues.