Novel triphenylamine-based fluorescent chemo-sensors for fast detection of thiophenols in vitro and in vivo

Abstract

A novel chemo-sensor based on triphenylamine derivative Probe-TPA for thiophenols (C₆H₅SH, p-NH₂-C₆H₄SH, p-OH-C₆H₄SH) detection was presented in this work. The target dye Probe-TPA displayed high selectivity and extremely fast response toward thiophenols in DMSO/PBS buffer (5/5, v/v) solution in the presence of other competitive species (such as K⁺, Na⁺, Ni²⁺, Fe³⁺, S^2-, HS^-, SO₄^2-, SO₃^2-, NaClO, H₂O₂, GSH, Cys, Hcy, etc.). The sensing property for thiophenols was studied by UV-Visible, fluorescence spectrophotometric analyses and DFT/TD-DFT calculations, those results indicated that the sensor Probe-TPA possessed high anti-interference ability, excellent sensitivity, higher specifity, dramatically "naked-eye" fluorescence enhancement (almost 200-folds) under 365 nm UV lamp, especially immediate response speed (within 15 s). In extended application aspect, the fluorescent chemo-sensor Probe-TPA could provide a new method of analysis to detect of thiophenol in real water samples and visualize monitoring in live cells with remarkable fluorescence variation.

Keywords: Cell imaging; Emission enhancement; Fast response; Thiophenols sensor; Triphenylamine derivatives.