Visualization of sulfane sulfurs in plant with a near-infrared fluorescent probe.

Recent studies suggest that sulfane sulfurs are involved in signal transduction processes of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and exhibit diverse regulatory effects in animal/mammals systems. However, the physiologies research is much lagged behind in plant systems, and there have been very few studies in investigating the roles of sulfane sulfurs in plant physiologies. The development of probes for selective, rapid, and sensitive detection of sulfane sulfurs is of great significance for studying their physiological roles in plant systems. However, so far there is still a lack of sufficient chemical tools for directly tracking and measuring sulfane sulfurs in plants, i.e. the detection of sulfane sulfurs in living plant tissues is still challenging. Herein, we report a near-infrared fluorescent probe, SSNIP, for the selective imaging of sulfane sulfurs. With SSNIP, we demonstrate the fluorescent monitoring of endogenous sulfane sulfurs in plant tissues such as Arabidopsis thaliana roots for the first time. Furthermore, the application of SSNIP in evaluating the sulfane sulfurs level in Arabidopsis thaliana roots of different growth stages are performed. The results show that the level of sulfane sulfurs in Arabidopsis thaliana roots correlates well with their growth stages which suggests that sulfane sulfurs might act as actual signalling moleculars in plants physiologies to promote plant growth and roots elongation. Besides, SSNIP is also capable of detecting endogenous sulfane sulfurs in living human cells. These results expose a potential application for the biological and pathological studies of sulfane sulfurs, especially in plant physiologies.