Developed a novel quinazolinone based turn-on fluorescence probe for highly selective monitoring hypochlorite and its bioimaging applications.

A novel quinazolinone based turn-on fluorescence probe for sensitive monitoring hypochlorite was prepared using the mild condensation reaction between 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl)-4(3H)-quinazolinone derivative and 4-methylbenzenesulfonyl hydrazide. The probe exhibited specific selectivity to ClO with obvious optical signal changes from weak fluorescence at 560 nm to a strong fluorescence emission at 520 nm and color changes from colorless to yellow, which could be noticed by the naked eye. The detection limit toward hypochlorite is as low as 11.4 nM. Moreover, the probe could sensitively response to ClO in living cells with satisfying imaging effect and has been successfully applied to the determination of ClO in practical water samples, which indicated that the probe has certain application potential for hypochlorite monitoring.