A multiemissive lanthanide metal-organic framework for selective detection of l-tryptophan

Abstract

Amino acids are one of the essential components of the human body. Lack of amino acids can lead to poor concentration, fat gain, memory loss and so on. Herein, a novel lanthanide metal-organic framework (Sm-MOF) was prepared for self-calibrated luminescent recognition of amino acids. Each amino acid is significantly correlated to a unique combination of the two emission intensity ratios of the characteristic peaks of the ligand to Sm3+ ion, making two-dimensional fingerprint recognition possible. It is worth mentioning that the new self-calibrated sensor can detect l-tryptophan (Trp) with excellent sensitivity and selectivity, rapid response (<32 s) and low detection limit (1.32 μM). The luminescence mechanism mainly derived from the energy transfer between Trp and ligand, Sm3+ ions. Furthermore, satisfactory recoveries of 95–107% were obtained in plasma, suggesting the potential application of Sm-MOF in the detection of Trp in plasma.