A Novel Fluorescent Probe for ATP Detection Based on Synergetic Effect of Aggregation-induced Emission and Counterion Displacement

In this work, a fluorescent probe(TPEBe-I) was developed for adenosine triphosphate(ATP) detection based on the synergetic effect of aggregation-induced emission and counterion displacement. TPEBe-I gave weak emission in aqueous solution due to the heavy-atom effect of counter iodide ion. However, upon the addition of ATP, the new aggregate complex(TPEBe-ATP) was formed between the cationic unit of TPEBe-I and ATP through electrostatic interactions, which not only restricted the intramolecular motion of luminogen but also eliminated the quenching effect of iodide ion. As a result, the fluorescent light-up detection for ATP was successfully achieved. Moreover, TPEBe-I exhibited high selectivity towards ATP and showed a wide linear detection region towards the logarithm of ATP concentration(5—600 µmol/L) with a detection limit of 1.0 µmol/L, enabling TPEBe-I as a promising probe for ATP quantitative analysis.