Abstract
Copper ions play a vital role in a variety of fundamental physiological processes not only in human beings and plants, but also for extensive insects and microorganisms. In this paper, a novel water-soluble ruthenium(II) complex as a turn-on copper(II) ions luminescent sensor based on o-(phenylazo)aniline was designed and synthesized. The azo group would undergo a specific oxidative cyclization reaction with copper(II) ions and turn into high luminescent benzotriazole, triggering significant luminescent increasements which were linear to the concentrations of copper(II) ions. The sensor distinguished by its high sensitivity (over 80-fold luminescent switch-on response), good selectivity (the changes of the emission intensity in the presence of other metal ions or amino acids were negligible) and low detection limit (4.42 nM) in water. Moreover, the copper(II) luminescent sensor exhibited good photostability under light irradiation. Furthermore, the applicability of the proposed sensor in biological samples assay was also studied and imaged copper(II) ions in living pea aphids successfully.
Highlights
Copper ions play a vital role in a variety of fundamental physiological processes in human beings and plants, and for extensive insects and microorganisms
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on developing a ruthenium(II) complex-based luminescent sensor for luminescence enhancement detecting Cu21 in aqueous solution with high selectivity and sensitivity and imaging Cu21 in insects
The Stokes shift of RuTAZO is 134 nm. These results indicate that the o-(phenylazo)aniline group of RuMAZO can be efficiently converted into luminescent benzotriazole
Summary
Copper ions play a vital role in a variety of fundamental physiological processes in human beings and plants, and for extensive insects and microorganisms. A novel water-soluble ruthenium(II) complex as a turn-on copper(II) ions luminescent sensor based on o-(phenylazo)aniline was designed and synthesized. Alterations in the cooper homeostasis are connected to some serious neurodegenerative diseases[5,6,7,8] and may cause gastrointestinal disturbance or damages to liver and kidney[9] While, for insects such as aphids, excess or deficiency in Cu(II) hinders their normal growth and development and affects their plant responses[10,11,12,13], which is closely related to the damage extent with their host plants. Ruthenium(II) complexes are one type of potential candidates for environmental and biological Cu21 probing, due to their good water solubility, high chemical and photostability, intense polarized luminescence, red emission, large Stokes shifts, and long lifetimes[31]. The non-emissive RuMAZO in presence of copper(II) ions undergoes oxidative cyclization to form a highly luminescent product RuTAZO (Fig. 1)
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