A novel di-functional fluorescent probe for ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ imaging in cells

Peroxynitrite (ONOO^-) is one of the most significant reactive oxygen species (ROS) in living cells. Zn²⁺ in living cells plays an essential part in different physiological processes. The abnormal concentration of ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ in living cells are related to many kinds of diseases, such as anemia, epilepsy, diarrhea, Alzheimer's disease, and so on. The relationship of ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ in living cells when the relative disease occurs remains unknown. So we develop the first probe H-1 for detecting ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ at the same time. The probe H-1 shows high selectivity, good anti-interference capability, low detection limit and short response time to ONOO^- and Zn²⁺. When the probe was applied to detect ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ in HeLa cells, we could observe the fluorescence changing in the green and blue channels separately without interference in real time. It has the potential to employ the relation of ONOO^- and Zn²⁺ in some disease mechanism research.