A Highly Selective and Sensitive Peptide-Based Fluorescent Ratio Sensor for Ag

A fluorescence ratio sensor based on dansyl-peptide, Dansyl-Glu-Cys-Glu-Glu-Trp-NH₂ (D-P5), was efficiently synthesized by Fmoc solid phase peptide synthesis. The sensor exhibits high selectivity and sensitivity for Ag⁺ over 16 metal ions in 100 mM sodium perchlorate and 50 mM 2-[4-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperazin-1-yl]ethanesulfonic acid buffer solution by fluorescence resonance energy transfer. The 1:1 binding stoichiometry of the sensor and Ag⁺ is measured by fluorescence ratio response and the job's plot. The dissociation constant of the sensor with Ag⁺ was calculated to be 6.4 × 10^-9 M, which indicates that the sensor has an effective binding affinity for Ag⁺. In addition, the limit of detection of the sensor for Ag⁺ was determined to be 80 nM, which also indicates that the sensor has a high sensitivity to Ag⁺. Result showed that the sensor is an excellent Ag⁺ sensor under neutral condition. Furthermore, this sensor displays good practicality for Ag⁺ detection in river water samples without performing tedious sample pretreatment, as well as for silver chloride detection.