Simple and practical, highly sensitive and responsive recognition of cysteine: Design, synthesis and mechanism study of a novel curcumin fluorescent probe

Abstract

A novel class of curcumin-derived fluorescent probes was designed. This kind of probe introduces easy leaving groups methylsulfonyl and phenylsulfonyl respectively to achieve the detection effect through the nucleophilic attack of amino acids. At the same time, BF2 group is introduced to increase the emission wavelength of the probe. Probes 4 and 5 can respond quickly with amino acids, but can specifically recognize Cys. In UV detection, the maximum absorption wavelength of the probes can be blue-shifted by 81 nm with the addition of Cys and still show a strong fluorescence signal. The detection limits for compounds 4 and 5 were determined to be 0.40 μM and 0.87 μM, respectively, with a goodness-of-fit of 0.99. In addition, a rapid response of the probe to Cys could be observed with the naked eye within 1 min. These results provide a new method for rapid detection of Cys; And this kind of probe has the drug structure of curcumin, which can provide ideas for the design of drug-probe.

Keywords

• Curcumin
• Amino acid
• Cysteine
• Fluorescent probe
• Luminescence