A Highly Sensitive Quinoline-Containing Rhodamine B Thiohydrazide Based Fluorescent Probe for Hg²⁺ in Aqueous Solution and Living Cells

Abstract

Quinoline-appended rhodamine B thiohydrazide based fluorescent probe was designed and applied in fluorescent detections of mercury ions in both aqueous solution and living cells. The signal change of the probe is based on a specific metal ion induced reversible ring-opening mechanism of a rhodamine B thiohydrazide. The probe exhibits a dynamic response concentration range for Hg²⁺ from 1.0 × 10⁻⁸ to 1.0 × 10⁻⁵ M with a detection limit of 8.5 × 10⁻⁹ M. The fluorescent probe is pH independent in medium condition and exhibits high selectivity over other common metal ions.

Keywords:

• Bio-imaging probe
• Fluorescence probe
• Mercury ions
• Quinoline
• Rhodamine B thiohydrazide

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant J0830415, 20975034), “973” National Key Basic Research Program of China (2007CB310500), Ministry of Education of China (NCET-07-0272), and Hunan Natural Science Foundation (07JJ3025) supported this work.

Notes

^a Average were calculated with n = 3.

^b Standard deviations.