Molecular design strategy for microorganism discrimination based on keto-salicylaldehyde azine derivatives

The rapid and selective identification of microorganisms is of great significance for clinical therapy applications. To develop high performance probes for microbe determination, we systemically constructed series aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens by modulating the structural planarity, the basicity of functional group, the length of linker moiety and the hydrophobicity based on our previous work. The detail structure-property relationship study based on experimental and theoretical observation revealed that: i) the planar skeleton is essential for probe insertion towards the cell wall via van n der Waals' force. ii) the basic function group enable the anchoring on the membrane by binding with acidic biomolecules. iii) the shortened alkyl chain is in favor of the efficient binding of basic groups with microbes and endows the desirable hydrophobicity. Based on the developed probes, the successful detection of the pathogens in clinic samples was achieved in highly sensitive and simple way. This work provides a reliable strategy for designing intelligent luminogens for microorganism discrimination and identification in efficient and sensitive way for in vitro diagnosis applications, especially point-of-care testing (POCT).