Chapter 11
Fluorescent Chemosensors
Yosuke Niko and Shigeru Watanabe
Abstract Chemosensors are molecules capable of monitoring changes in the
concentration, structure, or location of chemical species based on a detectable
physical signal and can therefore be used in quantitative analysis or for the monitoring and/or visualization of targeted analytes (ions, biomolecules, organelles, etc.).
Besides the analyte itself, chemosensors can be used indirectly to observe chemical reactions, biological events, or specific phases in materials where the analyte
appears (e.g., the concentration of reactive oxygen species in mitochondria is related
to apoptosis). As functional dyes show inherent optical properties such as photon
absorption/emission at distinct wavelengths, they are potential optical signal indicators in chemosensors. In fact, in the more than 150 years since F. Goppelsrönder
invented a morin-based chemosensor to detect aluminum anion using fluorescence
signal (Wu et al. in Chem Soc Rev 46:7105–7123, 2017), a number of such “fluorescent chemosensors” have been developed. Some of them are widely used in practical scientific fields such as biology, physiology, pharmacology, food chemistry,
and environmental chemistry, as well as in industrial and military/defense fields.
This chapter describes the representative principles and molecular designs of fluorescent chemosensors, and several historically important progresses are introduced.
The reason to limit the discussion to fluorescence is that fluorescence-based techniques generally exhibit superior sensitivity to absorption-based ones, and therefore
many dyes have been reported for the development of fluorescent chemosensors.
Keywords Photo-induced electron transfer · Förster resonance energy transfer ·
Excimer · Aggregation · Intramolecular charge transfer · Excited state
intramolecular proton transfer
Y. Niko (B) · S. Watanabe
Research and Education Faculty, Multidisciplinary Science Cluster, Interdisciplinary Science
Unit, Kochi University, 2-5-1, Akebono-cho, Kochi-shi, Kochi 780-8520, Japan
e-mail: y.niko@kochi-u.ac.jp
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Ooyama and S. Yagi (eds.), Progress in the Science of Functional Dyes,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4392-4_11
377
Fluorescent Chemosensors
Yosuke Niko and Shigeru Watanabe
Abstract Chemosensors are molecules capable of monitoring changes in the
concentration, structure, or location of chemical species based on a detectable
physical signal and can therefore be used in quantitative analysis or for the monitoring and/or visualization of targeted analytes (ions, biomolecules, organelles, etc.).
Besides the analyte itself, chemosensors can be used indirectly to observe chemical reactions, biological events, or specific phases in materials where the analyte
appears (e.g., the concentration of reactive oxygen species in mitochondria is related
to apoptosis). As functional dyes show inherent optical properties such as photon
absorption/emission at distinct wavelengths, they are potential optical signal indicators in chemosensors. In fact, in the more than 150 years since F. Goppelsrönder
invented a morin-based chemosensor to detect aluminum anion using fluorescence
signal (Wu et al. in Chem Soc Rev 46:7105–7123, 2017), a number of such “fluorescent chemosensors” have been developed. Some of them are widely used in practical scientific fields such as biology, physiology, pharmacology, food chemistry,
and environmental chemistry, as well as in industrial and military/defense fields.
This chapter describes the representative principles and molecular designs of fluorescent chemosensors, and several historically important progresses are introduced.
The reason to limit the discussion to fluorescence is that fluorescence-based techniques generally exhibit superior sensitivity to absorption-based ones, and therefore
many dyes have been reported for the development of fluorescent chemosensors.
Keywords Photo-induced electron transfer · Förster resonance energy transfer ·
Excimer · Aggregation · Intramolecular charge transfer · Excited state
intramolecular proton transfer
Y. Niko (B) · S. Watanabe
Research and Education Faculty, Multidisciplinary Science Cluster, Interdisciplinary Science
Unit, Kochi University, 2-5-1, Akebono-cho, Kochi-shi, Kochi 780-8520, Japan
e-mail: y.niko@kochi-u.ac.jp
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Ooyama and S. Yagi (eds.), Progress in the Science of Functional Dyes,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4392-4_11
377