Naphthalimide-based optical turn-on sensor for monosaccharide recognition using boronic acid receptor

Abstract

A highly selective and sensitive fluorescent sensor for the determination of fructose is developed. The fluorescent sensor was prepared by incorporating a new naphthalimide dye with a planar structure as a selectophore and graphene oxide (GO) nanoplatelets as a quencher for rapid optical detection of fructose. The designed probe, made with the high fusion loop-containing dye, along with the GO nanoplatelets, detected fructose over the other monosaccharides very well. The proposed sensor displays a linear response range of 7 × 10⁻⁵ to 3 × 10⁻² M with a low limit of detection of 23 × 10⁻⁶ M in solution at pH 7.4. This sensor shows a good selectivity towards fructose with respect to other saccharides. The proposed sensor was then applied to the determination of fructose in human plasma with satisfactory results.