Rapid, enantioselective and colorimetric detection of D-arginine

Xianzhe Yu; Binjie Zhang; Cailing Fan; Qianqian Yan; Shenglin Wang; Hui Hu; Qinxi Dong; Gengyu Du; Yanan Gao; Chaoyuan Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104964

Rapid, enantioselective and colorimetric detection of D-arginine

iScience. 2022 Aug 17;25(9):104964. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104964. eCollection 2022 Sep 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Advanced Materials in Tropical Island Resources, Collaborative Innovation Center of Ecological Civilization, Hainan University, No 58, Renmin Avenue, Haikou 570228, China.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA.

Abstract

D-amino acids are of biological significance yet are not clearly understood due to the lack of powerful analytical tools for their identification. Thus, the specific detection of a single enantiomer of a particular amino acid remains a great challenge due to their structural similarity. Here, we report a strategy to incorporate multiple reaction sites on a chiral 1,1'-bi-2,2'-naphthol-based fluorescent probe. It can respond specifically to D-arginine, while producing no response when in contact with all other amino acids. The probe can report arginine's concentration, and enantiomeric configuration and colorimetric studies enable its qualitative determination.

Keywords: Analytical chemistry; Analytical chemistry applications; Chemistry.