Smart probe for rapid and simultaneous detection and discrimination of hydrogen sulfide, cysteine/homocysteine, and glutathione

[Display omitted] •A smart fluorescent probe for simultaneous detection and discrimination of H2S, Cys/Hcy and GSH was reported.•This probe is rather simple and can be readily prepared.•This probe shows rapid response for these four thiols with high selectivity and sensitivity.•Simultaneous detection and discrimination of Cys and GSH in living cells by this probe was successfully achieved. Development of a simple probe for simultaneous detection and discrimination of the most important four biothiols (H2S, Cys, Hcy and GSH) is important but a challenging task. In this paper, a very simple but versatile fluorescent probe was reported, which can be used for simultaneous detection and discrimination of H2S, Cys/Hcy and GSH. This probe not only can be easily prepared, but also shows rapid (within 150s), selective and sensitive responses for these four biothiols with distinct fluorescent turn-on signal changes at 465nm. Moreover, this probe is able to show unique absorbance enhancement at 540nm for H2S, and additional fluorescence enhancement at 550nm only for Cys/Hcy, thus providing a rapid, simultaneous detection and discrimination method for H2S, Cys/Hcy and GSH. Imaging and discrimination of Cys and GSH in HeLa Cells by this probe were also successfully applied.