A Novel Turn-on Fluorescent Probe for Highly Selective Detection of Phosphate Ion in Living Cell: A Novel Turn-on Fluorescent Probe for Highly Selective Detection of Phosphate Ion in Living Cell

A novel fluorescent probe was synthesized and studied. Fluorescent probe 1 undergoes a unique Pi induced hydrolytic reaction in DMSO- HEPES at physiological pH that produces a colorimetric change associated with a 76 nm red-shift in the UV-vis absorption maximum and up to a 210-fold enhancement in the fluorescence intensity. It has successfully been used to stain and record microscopy images of HeLa cells. Moreover, the mechanistic proposal that these spectroscopic changes are associated with the reaction of Pi and probe 1 to form 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole gains support from the results of mass spectrometry studied.