A Novel Coumarin-based Fluorescent Probe for Recognition of Copper(II) Ions and Its Application in Bioimaging

Simple, accurate and real-time analytical methods are required for the detection of metal ions in a complex environment. In the present work, a fluorescent probe CPB based on coumarin was designed for recognizing Cu²⁺ ions. The fluorescence of CPB gradually quenched with increasing concentration of Cu²⁺ ions, due to the interactions between CPB and Cu²⁺ ions. With the addition of Cu²⁺ ions, the emission changes of CPB exhibited a good liner relationship toward the Cu²⁺ ions content in solution. Additionally, CPB could highly selective recognize Cu²⁺ ions among other metal ions in solution. Bearing the selectivity and fluorescence property toward Cu²⁺ ions, CPB was successfully applied to monitoring Cu²⁺ ions in Hela cells and zebrafish.