Development of a novel fluorescent probe for nitric oxide detection: 8-(3',4'-diaminophenyl)-difluoroboradiaza-S-indacence.

A novel fluorescent probe, 8-(3',4'-diaminophenyl)-difluoroboradiaza-S-indacence (DABODIPY), was designed and synthesized for monitoring nitric oxide production, which features high photostability and no pH dependency over a wide pH range. The fluorescence of 8-(3',4'-diaminophenyl)-difluoroboradiaza-S-indacence is very low, however, when the probe traps nitric oxide (NO) in the presence of dioxygen, the strong fluorescent triazole form is obtained, which offers the advantages of specificity, and sensitivity for direct detection of NO. Calibration using various concentrations of NO showed the method has good linearity (0.08-4.00 micromol l(-1)) and its detection limit is 10 nmol l(-1) (s/n = 3). The proposed method has been used to monitor the release of NO from S-nitrosocysteine, a NO-releasing agent.