A turn-on fluorescent probe for detecting and bioimaging of HOCl in inflammatory and liver disease models

[Display omitted] •A novel fluorescent probe WZ-HOCl for detecting HOCl was designed.•WZ-HOCl could quantitatively detect HOCl with high sensitivity.•WZ-HOCl can distinguish normal hepatocytes and hepatoma cells by detecting HOCl.•WZ-HOCl was successfully used for imaging HOCl in inflammatory and liver disease models. Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is a common reactive oxygen species (ROS) associated with the development of liver, tumor, inflammatory, and other diseases. In this work, the turn-on fluorescent probe named (WZ-HOCl) with a naphthalimide structure was designed and synthesized to detect endogenous HOCl in disease models. WZ-HOCl can achieve a fast response to HOCl with good linearity in the range of 0–45 μM (LOD = 147 nM). The application of WZ-HOCl in bioimaging was investigated by constructing a series of cellular disease models, and the results showed that WZ-HOCl could sensitively detect endogenous HOCl in inflammatory and liver disease models. It can also be used to differentiate between hepatocytes and hepatoma cells. WZ-HOCl will provide new methods and ideas for fluorescent probes in detecting drug-induced liver injury, alcoholic and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, and some inflammation-related diseases.