A high performance fluorescent arylamine sensor toward lung cancer sniffing

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in humans. Therefore, development of sensitive, selective and non-destructive diagnose method of lung cancer is of paramount importance. In this work, an electron-poor fluorophore, perylene bisimide (PBI), was modified with cholesterol (Chol) at its two bay positions, resulting in a derivative of PEBC with improved solubility in organic solvents and enhanced self-assembly properties. Photophysical and SEM studies revealed that the compound as developed has a great tendency to form aggregates in different solvents. Accordingly, a fluorescent film with optimized fibrillar networked structures was fabricated by adjusting the assembly behavior of PEBC in mixed solvents. Sensing performance studies demonstrated that the as prepared film is super-sensitive and selective to the presence of aniline and o-toluidine in air. Based on the studies, an aniline, an important biomarker of lung cancer, sensor was constructed. Sensor's performance studies demonstrated that aniline and its relevant o-toluidine, another biomarker of lung cancer, could be sensitively, selectively, reversibly and fast detected. The response time is less than 1 s, the calculated detection limit (DL) is similar to 15 ppb, and presence of common organic amines and solvents show little effect upon the detection. Moreover, the sensor works well when simulated exhale from lung cancer patients is employed as a sample, indicating its great potential in the diagnosis of lung cancer. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.