A fluorescein-coumarin based ratiometric fluorescent probe for detecting hydrazine and its real applications in cells imaging.

According to the mechanism of hydrazine to ester bond elimination, a novel ratiometric fluorescent probe (FCP) based on the fluorescein-coumarin structure is designed and synthesized for detecting hydrazine. The obvious red shift in the absorption and fluorescence spectrum is caused by the hydrolysis of the ester bond of FCP by upon mixing with hydrazine. The proposed FCP probe is shown to have linear detection ranges from 0 to 250 nM for hydrazine, and LOD is 0.364 nM. In addition, this promising probe possesses high sensitivity and selectivity for monitoring the intracellular hydrazine, thus, has great potential to be applied in early diagnosis of disease. Meanwhile, it has been successfully applied to the detection and cell imaging of hydrazine in actual water samples.