New progress has been made in the simultaneous detection of inorganic mercury and organic mercury by using aggregation induced fluorescence

Recently, new progress has been made in the simultaneous detection of inorganic mercury and organic mercury by using aggregation induced fluorescence in the research groups of Zhu Lina, Li Xiaozeng and Kong Deming of the school of chemistry of Nankai University The research results were published in Chem SCI (DOI: 10.1039 / c8sc05714a) This work was mainly completed by Yuan Bin, a doctoral candidate of Tianjin University, and Wang Dongxia, a master candidate of Nankai University, with associate professor Zhu Lina, Professor Li Xiaozeng and Professor Kong Deming as co correspondents Mercury is a well-known environmental pollutant, which has strong neurotoxicity and teratogenicity It is listed as one of the priority pollutants to be controlled by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency Under the action of anaerobic microorganisms, inorganic mercury in the environment can be converted into organic mercury (such as methylmercury) Because of its good liposoluble property, methylmercury is easily absorbed by organisms, and then invades the central nervous system, resulting in language and memory disorders In terms of toxicity, methylmercury is much higher than inorganic mercury Therefore, it is an urgent and practical problem to establish a simple and rapid analytical method to realize the simultaneous detection of inorganic mercury and organic mercury A water-soluble fluorescence probe, tmbipe, was designed and synthesized by Professor Zhu Lina and Li Xiaozeng of Tianjin University and Kong Deming of Nankai University In the presence of inorganic mercury or organic mercury, the C atom of phenyl imidazole group in the molecule can quickly combine with Hg (II) to form a binuclear Hg II tetracarbene complex The existence of two chelating rings in the complexes greatly increases the planarity of the molecules, which leads to the aggregation of the complex molecules and gives the aggregation induced fluorescence signal The formation of binuclear Hg II tetracarbene complexes and their aggregates can play a synergistic role in "hardening" the probe molecules, thus greatly reducing the energy loss caused by non radiation deactivation, and obtaining a significantly higher fluorescence signal change than that caused by simple aggregation The probe can produce sensitive fluorescence signal response to inorganic mercury and organic mercury at the same time, so as to realize the simultaneous detection of inorganic mercury and organic mercury The detection can be completed within 3 minutes at room temperature The results show that the probe can also be used for image analysis of Hg (II) enrichment in living cells The aggregation of probes in the presence of Hg (II) and image analysis of Hg (II) enrichment in living cells (source: chem SCI) This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Tianjin Natural Science Foundation and Tianjin University self innovation fund.