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Updated: May 7, 2026

Qualitative Identification of Carboxylic Acids, Boronic Acids, and Amines Using Cruciform Fluorophores
Published on: August 19, 2013
Colorimetric/fluorogenic detection of thiols by N-fused porphyrin in water
Yoshiya Ikawa1, Satoshi Touden, Sho Katsumata
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan; Center for Molecular Systems (CMS), Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan; Synthetic Systems Biology Research Center, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan.
Abstract:
A water-soluble derivative of N-fused porphyrin (NFP) possessing four cationic side-arms (pPyNFP) serves as a unique class of colorimetric/fluorogenic reporters that selectively react with biothiols in aquaous media to afford N-confused porphyrin (NCP) derivatives, while other nucleophilic amino acids were inert under a wide range of pH conditions. Owing to the large difference of the optical properties between NCP and NFP, the transformation enabled selective detection of biothiols in colorimetric/fluorogenic manner, especially in the near-infrared region. To the best our knowledge, this is the first example of porphyrin-based thiol detection systems that use the direct attack of thiol group on the optical reporter.
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