Frontiers in Chemistry (Mar 2022)

Design and Synthesis of Dipeptidomimetic Isocyanonaphthalene as Enhanced-Fluorescent Chemodosimeter for Sensing Mercury Ion and Living Cells

  • Xiao-Juan Wang,
  • Gao-Wei Li,
  • Yi-Peng Cheng,
  • Qiu-Ling Sun,
  • Yuan-Qiang Hao,
  • Chen-Hong Wang,
  • Lan-Tao Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2022.813108
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10

Abstract

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A novel valine-based isocyanonaphthalene (NpI) was designed and synthesized by using an easy method and enabled the selective fluorescence detection of Hg2+. The chemodosimeter can display an immediate turn-on fluorescence response (500-fold) towards target metal ions upon the Hg2+-mediated conversion of isocyano to amino within NpI. Based on this specific reaction, the fluorescence-enhancement probe revealed a high sensitivity toward Hg2+ over other common metal ions and exhibited excellent aqueous solubility, good antijamming capability, high sensitivity (detection limit: 14.2 nM), and real-time detection. The response mechanism of NpI was supported by NMR spectroscopy, MS analysis and DFT theoretical calculation using various techniques. Moreover, a dipeptidomimetic NpI probe was successfully applied to visualize intracellular Hg2+ in living cells and monitor Hg2+ in real water samples with good recoveries and small relative standard deviations.

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