Intramolecular fluorescence resonance energy transfer in a novel PDI–BODIPY dendritic structure: Synthesis, Hg2+ sensor and living cell imaging

Abstract

A novel intramolecular fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and photo-induced electron transfer (PET) based dendritic compound PDI–BODIPY has been developed: Tetra-boron-dipyrrin (BODIPY) attached perylene bisimide by click chemistry. Compound PDI–BODIPY as a fluorescence probe for rapid, selective, and sensitive determination of Hg(II) ions has 98% of high energy transfer efficiency. The dissociation constant (Kd) of the probe PDI–BODIPY with Hg2+ is 6.67×10−12M and the detection limit estimated from the titration results was 2×10−8M. Moreover, the imaging of Hg(II) ions in Hela cells further certified the potential value of the probe.