A light-up fluorescent probe for citrate detection based on bispyridinum amides with aggregation-induced emission feature

Citrate is an important intermediate in the citric acid cycle, a vital metabolic pathway for animals, plants and bacteria. It is of great significance to detect its levels in human beings because several diseases may cause the abnormal of citrate. In this paper, a new turn-on fluorescent sensor (TPE-Py) using the classic tetraphenylethylene (TPE) as the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorophore and bipyridinium-based amides as the recognition receptor has been synthesized for the detection of citrate. The probe exhibits good selectivity and sensitivity to citrate with a relatively low detection limit (1.0 × 10⁻⁷ M). The enhancement of the fluorescence is relevant with the AIE property based on the complexation of TPE-Py with citrate caused by the hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions between the bipyridinium diamides and citrate, which has been proved by ¹H NMR and mass spectra titration, scanning electronic microscope and dynamic light scattering analyses. More importantly, the quantification of citrate in artificial urine may develop TPE-Py fluorometric probe for the citrate detection in real biosystems.