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Published on: January 27, 2013
Water-soluble fluorescent sensor for Zn2+ with high selectivity and sensitivity imaging in living cells
Daying Liu1, Tingting Zhang2, Mingyang Zhang2
1College of Basic Science, Chemistry Experiment Teaching Center, Tianjin Agricultural University, Tianjin, China; Department of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
Abstract:
A new water-soluble 4-amino-1, 8-naphthalimide based fluorescent sensor, with iminoacetic acid and iminoethoxyacetic acid as receptor contained two different arms, was developed. Under physiological pH conditions, it demonstrates good water solubility, high selectivity and sensitivity for sensing Zn2+ with about 20-fold enhancement in aqueous solution, with a characteristic emission band of 4-amino-1, 8-naphthalimide with a green color centered at 550 nm. It was applied successfully to detect Zn2+ in living cells.

