A Novel Thiophene-Based Fluorescent Chemosensor for the Detection of Zn and CN: Imaging Applications in Live Cells and Zebrafish.

A novel fluorescent turn-on chemosensor ((E)-3-((4-(diethylamino)-2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)-2,3-dihydrothiophene-2-carboxamide) has been developed and used to detect Zn and CN. Compound displayed a notable fluorescence increase with Zn. The limit of detection (2.55 ± 0.05 μM) for zinc ion was far below the standard (76 μM) of the WHO (World Health Organization). In particular, compound could be applied to determine Zn in real samples, and to image Zn in both HeLa cells and zebrafish. Additionally, could detect CN through a fluorescence enhancement with little inhibition with the existence of other types of anions. The detection processes of compound for Zn and CN were demonstrated with various analytical methods like Job plots, H NMR titrations, and ESI-Mass analyses.