A near-infrared fluorescent probe for the detection of Cu in Chinese herbal medicine and imaging in living cells.

Copper is one of the common among the heavy metal pollution in Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). So, it is essential to develop rapid and accurate testing method to quantify the Cu content in CHM. Herein, we prepared a coordination-based near-infrared fluorescent probe (NRh6G-FA) by introducing a hemicyanine dye in rhodamine 6G scaffold.