A novel sensitive and selective probe for the important antibiotic vancomycin (Van) has been synthesized by integrating a coumarin and a fluorescein as dual fluorescence reporters and a Van binding peptide D-Ala-D-Ala. Only weak green fluorescence was initially observed, which was mostly attributed to fluorescence self-quenching induced by fluorophore stacking. Upon the binding of Van with the D-Ala-D-Ala peptide, the fluorescence turned on, probably due the disaggregation of fluorophores. The intensity ratio of the dual emission bands I519/I446 exhibited an excellent linear relationship with the concentration of Van increasing from 0-20 μM in synthetic urine. The lowest detection limit was calculated to be 92.8 nM in urine, which made the probe applicable in clinically relevant concentration ranges. The synthetic probe has also shown the potential for Van detection in human serum. More interestingly, this probe has been successfully applied for in vivo imaging of Van in zebrafish. Graphical Abstract.
Keywords: Fluorescence imaging; Fluorescence ratiometric probes; Vancomycin detection; Zebrafish imaging.