Cysteine (Cys) and Homocysteine (Hcy) are important biothiols in living organisms. They play important roles in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. Therefore, it is very important to design an optical probe for selective detection of Cys/Hcy. Herein, we designed and synthesized a fluorescent probe NBD-B-T based on BODIPY structure, which showed excellent lysosome targeting ability and outstanding Cys/Hcy detection capacity. For NBD-B-T, the sensing group 7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole (NBD) and the lysosomal targeting group morpholine were introduced. The results show that probe NBD-B-T can detect Cys/Hcy with fluorescence emission turn-on performance. The low detection limits of this probe are about 76.0 nM for Hcy and 97.6 nM for Cys, respectively. Probe NBD-B-T shows low detection limit, high stability, excellent selectivity and sensitivity. More importantly, NBD-B-T can target lysosome and simultaneously detect Cys/Hcy in living cells.

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