Substantial utility of lead in numerous industries (storage, batteries, gasoline, cable manufacture, paint and ammunition), has resulted in recurring of environmental contamination. Lead being one of the highly abundant elements in nature, ranks third among the list of toxic substances. Owing to its ever-increasing demand and allied toxicity (memory loss, irritability, anemia, muscle paralysis, and mental retardation), development of novel synthetic receptors suitable to track Pb 2+ in vitro as well as in vivo has been an exciting area of research in the past few decades. In this review, emphasis has been diverted to summarize and briefly discuss major contributions made towards development of fluorescent abiotic receptors capable of sensing ionic lead (Pb 2+ ) under aqueous environments as well as in living cells.
To the best of our knowledge, only a few number of single molecule based receptors
synthesized from Diaminomalenonitrile (DAMN) have been explored and developed as
highly selective and sensitive recognition motifs for cations and anions in a organic,
aqueous or mixed solvent system. The interaction between such receptors and ions has
been reported with remarkable alteration in absorption and fluorescence properties of the
molecule. The signal transduction is prompt, and attributed to the modulation of Internal
Charge Transfer (ICT) and/or Photo Induced Electron Transfer (PET) processes within
the molecule. In this review, we have compiled whole literature about recognition of
ions via DAMN based molecular receptors possessing biological applications including
live cell imaging. Emphasis has been diverted to summarize and briefly discuss signal
response, operation of solvent, selectivity, binding affinity and detection limit. In addition
to this, some of the crucial design considerations, such as choice of fluorophore, tuning
of electronic effects and mechanism of operation are momentarily discussed.
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