Highly selective ratiometric fluorescent probes for the detection of Fe3+ and its application in living cells

It's of vital importance to detect heavy metals in environment and living cells. In this work, four near-infrared regions boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) probes (QBPH, PBPH, QBP and PBP) are constructed based on two BODIPY precursors (QB, PB) for sensing of Fe3+. As expected, these four probes exhibit obvious colorimetric and ratiometric response to Fe3+. In addition, QBP and PBP display highly sensitive and selective performance for detection of Fe3+. More importantly, QBP and PBP are successfully applied to near infrared imaging and detection of Fe3+ in living A549 cells; it indicates that these novel designed probes could be a useful tool for the studies of Fe3+ in living cells.