Construction of a novel chitosan-based macromolecular nanoprobe for specific fluorescent detection of HS in live animals.

HS is one of the signal molecules in live organisms and a poisonous gas, which is closely related to our life. The traditional synthetic small molecular organic probes often have the disadvantages of low biocompatibility. In this paper, a fluorescent nanoprobe for detecting HS in live organisms was constructed based on chitosan. The structure of CH-CN was characterized by infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), XRD and scanning electron microscope (SEM). In the presence of NaS, the fluorescence intensity at 560 nm was significantly enhanced, and showed high selectivity and sensitivity toward HS. Based on the good fluorescence response of CH-CN, the probe was also successfully applied to HS imaging in HepG2 cells and zebrafish. These experimental results indicate that the probe has lower cytotoxicity and excellent stability. The present research shows a typical example of construction of chitosan-based macromolecular fluorescent materials and their bio-imaging application.