Abstract
Hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) is an important biomolecule and significant efforts have focused on developing chemical tools to aid different biological investigations. Of such tools, there are relatively few chemiluminescent or bioluminescent methods for H(2)S detection. Here we report two dioxetane-based chemiluminescent probes for H(2)S detection. With these probes, we directly compare the probe response to H(2)S-mediated azide reduction and nucleophilic displacement of 2,4-dinitrophenyl motifs and demonstrate that the S(N)Ar cleavage of the DNP group results in a larger response and greater stability in water.