Research Progress in Mercury Ion Fluorescence Probes Based on Organic Small Molecules

Abstract

Mercury has strong biological toxicity and poses great harm to human health and the environment. Fluorescent probes have been widely applied in the detection of mercury ion in recent years, due to these probes with high sensitivity, high selectivity, and real-time monitoring. Owing to the advantages of small molecules such as structural diversity, good repeatability, easy modification, and clear sensing mechanisms, many organic small molecular fluorescence probes for detecting mercury ion have also been developed. According to the different reaction mechanisms between probes and mercury ion, these organic small molecular fluorescence probes can be classified into two categories based on coordination type reactions and bond breaking type reactions. The research progress of organic small molecular fluorescence probes used to detect mercury ion in the past five years is summarized in detail. This provides a reference for their further development in the future, especially for the new turn-on type reactive organic small molecular fluorescence probes for detecting mercury ion by utilizing the characteristic reactions. Keywords mercury ion detection; fluorescent probes; organic small molecules; reaction mechanism; molecular design and synthesis 汞是一种剧毒的不可降解的金属污染物 [1] , 一旦进 入生物体, 就会在生物体内累积, 影响蛋白质和酶的正 常功能, 进而导致各种急性中毒事件 [2] . 因此, 建立一 种灵敏、选择性检测汞离子的有效分析方法, 对汞离子 的监测、临床诊断及治疗具有重要意义 [3] . 与用来检测 汞离子的传统分析方法, 如伏安法、原子吸收光谱法、 X 射线吸收光谱法、分光光度法等相比, 荧光探针具有 高选择性、响应速度快和可实时监测等优点 [4] . 这使得 汞离子荧光探针引起了研究人员极大的关注, 并得到了 高速发展 [5][6][7] .