Oxidation of phenothiazine based fluorescent probe for hypochlorite and its application to live cell imaging

New phenothiazine appended BODIPY derivative has been synthesized and characterized for the determination of hypochlorite in live cells. The fluorescent probe has exhibited 72 fold fluorescence enhancement upon addition of hypochlorite over other reactive oxygen species. Further, the studies proved that the probe has ability to detect the hypochlorite even at extremely low level (4.1 nM). Having less cytotoxicity and negligible auto-fluorescence, the probe was successfully used to monitor external addition and internal secretion of hypochlorite in RAW 264.7 cells.