肝细胞癌（HCC）是肝脏中最常见的恶性肿瘤之一，预后差。为了改善肝细胞癌患者的预后和总体生存率，及早发现并精确切除是非常重要的。肝细胞癌的癌化过程中，细胞微环境、活性化合物和酶可能会发生改变。次氯酸（HClO）是细胞信号通路中最重要的信号分子之一，对许多细胞过程起着重要作用。为了检测和治疗肝癌，必须研究肝细胞中的HClO水平变化。但是，开发特异性荧光探针以检测肝细胞中的HClO仍然具有挑战性。在此，我们设计和合成了一种NIR肝细胞特异性荧光探针（MBH-MT），该探针在生物样品中检测HClO具有出色的光学性能。使用独特的探针MBH-MT进行细胞成像实验表明，该生物相容性传感器能够监测HClO并区分正常细胞和癌细胞（如HepG2，HUVEC，RAW264.7，L02和HK-2细胞）。使用探针MBH-MT进行器官成像实验，证明其在体内诊断和成像肝细胞癌的有效性。MBH-MT的原位成像还证明它可以定位和成像小鼠肝细胞癌。此外，MBH-MT还成功用于早期诊断和指导肝癌手术。未来，我们期望这个强大的工具可以帮助检测和成像肝细胞癌，从而影响到大量的人群。版权所有 © 2023 Elsevier B.V.。

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies in the liver with poor prognosis. In order to improve the prognosis and overall survival of patients with HCC, it is important to identify it at early stage and resect it precisely. Cell microenvironment, active compounds, and enzymes may change during the cancerization of hepatocytes. Hypochlorous acid (HClO), one of the most significant signal molecules in the cellular signaling pathway, plays an important role in many cellular processes. To detect and treat liver cancers, it is imperative to study how HClO levels change in hepatocytes. However, developing fluorescent probes specific to liver cells to detect HClO still challenging. Herein, we designed and synthesized a NIR hepatocyte-specific fluorescent probe (MBH-MT) that displayed excellent optical properties for detecting HClO in biological samples. Cell imaging experiment conducted with the unique probe MBH-MT, showed that the biocompatible sensor is capable of monitoring HClO and distinguishing normal cells from cancer cells (e.g., HepG2, HUVEC, RAW264.7, L02 and HK-2 cells). An organ imaging experiment with the probe MBH-MT demonstrated its effectiveness in diagnosing and imaging hepatocellular carcinoma in vivo. MBH-MT's in situ imaging also demonstrated that it can target and image mouse hepatocellular carcinomas. Furthermore, MBH-MT has also successfully been used to diagnose and guide liver cancer surgery early. In the future, we expect that this powerful tool may be help in the detection and imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma, which may affect a large number of people.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.