Selective and sensitive detection of hypochlorite in living cells using reduced iodine-doped carbon dots

Hypochlorite (ClO⁻) is an important metabolite that participates a series of intracellular signal communications, which is closely related with the generation and development of various diseases. Herein, we design and prepare reduced iodine-doped carbon dots (I-CDs) that are highly sensitive to ClO⁻. The proposed I-CDs show bright green fluorescence (FL), which can be efficiently quenched upon treatment with ClO⁻ because of the destroy of I-CDs structure caused by oxidation of iodine by ClO⁻. This sensing platform displays a good linear response range of 1 − 60 μM with a low detection limit of 95.1 nM. Importantly, monitoring ClO⁻ level in living cells is further realized, demonstrating the capability of this strategy to determine the content of intracellular ClO⁻. This work provides a promising tool for visual sensing ClO⁻, which is of great significance for early diagnosis of ClO⁻ related diseases.