A highly selective coumarin-based chemosensor for the sequential detection of Fe3+ and pyrophosphate and its application in living cell imaging

A new chemosensor based on coumarin FB has been designed and synthesized for the detection of Fe3+ and PPi. FB displayed a high affinity to Fe3+ in the presence of other competing cations. The resulting FB-Fe3+ complex displayed highly sensitivity to PPi via Fe3+ displacement approach. The Fe3+ and PPi recognition processes is rapid and reversible, the detection limits of FB to Fe3+ and FB-Fe3+ complex to PPi were estimated to be 8.73 x 10(-8) M and 1.25 x 10(-8) M, respectively. The good biocompatibility of FB enables the investigation of fluorescent response for Fe3+ and PPi in living cells by confocal microscope. A B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) basis set was employed for optimization of FB and FB-Fe3+ complex. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.