A simple boronic acid-based fluorescent probe for selective detection of hydrogen peroxide in solutions and living cells

Abstract An approach of high sensitivity and selectivity for hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) detection is highly demanded due to its important roles in regulating diverse biological process. In this work, we introduced an easily synthesized fluorescent “turn off” probe, BNBD . It is designed based on the core structure of 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzofurazan as a fluorophore and incorporated with a specific H 2 O 2 -reactive group, aryl boronate, for sensitive and selective detection of H 2 O 2 . We demonstrated its selectivity by incubating the probe with other types of ROS, and measured the limit of detection of BNBD as 1.8 nM. BNBD is also conducive to H 2 O 2 detection at physiological conditions. We thus applied it to detect both exogenous and endogenous changes of H 2 O 2 in living cells by confocal microscopy, supporting its future applications to selectively monitor H 2 O 2 levels and identify H 2 O 2 -related physiological or pathological responses from live cells or tissues in the near future.