Cysteine (Cys) is closely associated with many physiological and pathological processes in organisms and cells. The establishment of a molecular tool for the rapid and simple selective recognition of Cys would be of great benefit in the diagnosis and prevention of related diseases. In this paper, we developed a turn-on fluorescent probe BMBA, 3-(benzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)-4'-morpholino-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl acrylate, designed with an acryloyl ester group to initiate the reaction and a benzothiazole moiety serving as the fluorescent component. Compared with other biological thiols, the probe BMBA possessed exceptional sensitivity and specificity for detecting Cys, boasting a low detection limit at 28.6 nM and a response duration of merely 5 min. The single-crystal data for the probe BMBA and compound 2 were successfully obtained and the recognition mechanism of Cys was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy and 1H NMR. Most importantly, we effectively utilized BMBA for the detection of Cys in calf serum and living cells.

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