A new fluorescent probe for hydrogen sulfide based on naphthalimide derivatives and its biological application

[Display omitted] •A novel fluorescent probe SBD for the detection of H2S was constructed.•Probe SBD displayed excellent recognition performance of H2S, and its solution color changed from yellow to pink.•Probe SBD showed good cytocompatibility and could be applied to fluorescence imaging. As a signal transduction molecule in organism, H2S plays an important role in many physiological processes. In this paper, a novel H2S fluorescent probe SBD was designed based on 1,8-naphthalimide and dinitrobenzenesulfonyl group. In DMSO-PBS solution, probe SBD could recognize H2S and change the color of solution from yellow to pink, realizing the naked eye recognition for H2S. In addition, probe SBD displayed high fluorescence enhancement rate (45-fold), good selectivity, strong anti-interference ability and the detection limit was as low as 152 nM. Most importantly, probe SBD showed very low cytotoxicity and had been successfully applied to image exogenous H2S in living cells.