Design and Synthesis of a Dinuclear Copper(II)‎ Probe for Selective Fluorescence Sensing of Pyrophosphate

Abstract EN

A novel coumarin-based compound DPAC with two dipicolylamine (DPA) arms as the chelator sites was designed and synthesized.

The compound DPAC exhibits a highly selective response to Cu2+ ions with a distinctly emission-quenching phenomenon.

Moreover, the in situ formed complex DPAC-Cu2+ was used for the detection of pyrophosphate (PPi).

The binding manner of probe DPAC-Cu2+ with PPi in 1 : 1 stoichiometry was supported by the Benesi-Hildebrand fitting, ESI-MS and HPLC analysis.

The linear range of PPi concentration was 1-4 μM, and the detection limit was 0.53 μM.

The competing experiments illustrated that the probe DPAC-Cu2+ had good sensitivity and selectivity for PPi than other anions, including ATP, ADP, AMP, and Pi in CH3CN : HEPES (3 : 2, v/v, pH=7.20) buffer.

Further, cell fluorescence imaging experiments indicated that the probe DPAC-Cu2+ had a potential to be used to detect PPi in vivo.