Rhodamine–benzothiazole conjugate as an efficient multimodal sensor for Hg2+ ions and its application to imaging in living cells†
Abstract
A rhodamine B dye bearing a benzothiazole (RBT-1) conjugate is designed and synthesized, it shows a highly selective and sensitive naked-eye color change and turn-on fluorescence response to Hg2+ ions. The detection limit of RBT-1 towards Hg2+ is found to be 0.17 nM. RBT-1 exhibits low cytotoxicity and cell membrane permeability, which makes it capable of sensing Hg2+ in HeLa cells and real water samples.