ABSTRACT: With use of simple terpyridine zinc nitratecomplexes, intriguing visual recognition of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) viaselective coordination assembly leading to two-component metallo-hydrogelformation has been realized. With intensive fluorescent study and density functional theory calculations, it may beinferred, besides the selective metal−ligand interaction between Zn center andphosphate groups, the intramolecular π-stacking between theplanar nucleobases of ATP and the metal-hybrid aromatic ring of pincer complexstrongly affected the geometry of the coordinated adducts andpossible molecular self-assembly process, which constitute a completely newsensing strategy in comparison with the conventional approaches. Furthermore,in light of extreme sensitivity of pincer zinc complexes toward ATP atmicromolar scale (1.85 μM) and remarkable fluorescent enhancement (ca. 44-fold) upon ATP addition,the feasibility of the low cytotoxicity pincer zinc complexes in monitoring ATPin HeLa cells has been fulfilled with confocal fluorescence microscopy. KEYWORDS: adenosine triphosphate,celluar imaging, fluorescenceenhancement, metallo-hydrogel, visual recognition

Macroscopicand Fluorescent Discrimination of Adenosine Triphosphate via Selective Metallo-hydrogelFormation: A Visual, Practical, and Reliable Rehearsal toward Cellular Imaging

WeiweiFang,Cong Liu,Fabiao Yu,YaoqiLiu,Zhenhua Li,Lingxin Chen,XiaolingBao, and Tao Tu

ACS Appl. Mater.Interfaces 2016, 8, 20583−20590

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.6b05804