Multifunctional fluorogenic probes from hydrazide schiff base-modified polyvinylpyrrolidone to detect Al3+ in aqueous environment and living cells

Abstract

Recent efforts have been made to develop chemosensors for aluminum cation (Al3+) detection to monitor the concentration of an aluminum metal ion in both the environment and biological systems due to the high health risks associated with aluminum exposure. Hence the development of chemosensory with multifunctionality has advantages over traditional approaches. Therefore, multi-functional chemosensor materials were fabricated with colorimetric, chromogenic, and fluorogenic probes from the hydrazone-based polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP-NDHIP) were designed by Atom Transfer Radical Addition Polymerization (ATRP) approach. The Schiff base moiety was conjugated with different chain lengths of PVP to provide good aqueous solubility, low detection limits, enhanced selectivity, and sensitivity of the probes. As a result, the PVP-NDHIP probes showed substantial fluorescence enhancement in linearity upon adding Al3+ ions with a low detection limit of a few nanomolar by fluorescence detection in an aqueous solution. Especially, PVP-NDHIP with Mw of 10,000 g/mol (PVP-NDHIP10k) presented the most sensitive absorption and fluorescence titrations performance with 26.4 nM and 3.9 nM, respectively. Furthermore, the PVP-NDHIP probes demonstrated excellent performance in water and various aqueous cosolvent environments, such as DIW/DMSO, DIW/THF, DIW/DMF, DIW/Ethanol, and DIW/Methanol. Moreover, the obtained probe was used for internalization and Al3+ intracellular imaging. The findings explained that hydrazone-based polyvinylpyrrolidone could create a critical role as a multifunctional approach in both environmental contamination and Al3+ related pathway in a biological system.