A novel nitrogen heterocycle platform-based highly selective and sensitive fluorescence chemosensor for the detection of Al3+ and its application in cell imaging

Zengchen Liu; Shujing Li; Genwu Ge; Yanxia Li; Chunxiang Zhao; Hui Zhang; Zhiguang Yang

doi:10.1039/c8ra10036e

A novel nitrogen heterocycle platform-based highly selective and sensitive fluorescence chemosensor for the detection of Al³⁺ and its application in cell imaging

RSC Adv. 2019 Feb 12;9(10):5377-5383. doi: 10.1039/c8ra10036e. eCollection 2019 Feb 11.

Authors

Zengchen Liu¹, Shujing Li¹, Genwu Ge¹, Yanxia Li¹, Chunxiang Zhao¹, Hui Zhang¹, Zhiguang Yang¹

Affiliation

¹ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Functional Materials, International Joint Research Laboratory for Biomedical Nanomaterials of Henan, The Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Functional Materials and Applications, Zhoukou Normal University Zhoukou 466001 PR China liuzengchen@zknu.cn hxzhanghui2005@163.com.

Abstract

In the study, a highly selective and sensitive fluorescence sensor derived from nitrogen heterocycle was synthesized and characterized. By the fluorescence experiments, it was found to show a higher response toward Al³⁺ than other commonly coexistent metal ions in C₂H₅OH/H₂O media (pH = 7.2). Moreover, the large binding constant (3.44 × 10¹⁴ M^-1) between Al³⁺ and the sensor was calculated by fluorescence titration experiment. In addition, the synergistic effect mechanism due to photoinduced electron transfer (PET) and C[double bond, length as m-dash]N isomerization was deduced according to the fluorescence behavior. In addition, the fluorescence imaging in living cells was studied systemically, which exhibited high fluorescence sensing activity toward Al³⁺.