A molecular logic gate for the highly selective recognition of pyrophosphate with a hypocrellin A-Zn(ii) complex

Abstract

Pyrophosphate (PPi) participates in many biological and chemical processes such as energy transduction so that investigations on its role and detection have become very significant. In this contribution, we have developed a molecular logic gate for the recognition of PPi with a fluorescent hypocrellin A-zinc(II) complex (HA-Zn²⁺), and the outputs of which correspond to the fluorescence emission ratio at 604 nm and wavelength shift relative to 629 nm. The emission at 604 nm is the intrinsic fluorescence of HA, which can be effectively quenched by Zn²⁺ with a new emission at 629 nm owing to the formation of the HA-Zn²⁺ complex. It was found, however, that the new emission at 629 nm is highly selectively quenched with the addition of PPi, recovering the emission at 604 nm, and the recovery ratio is linearly correlated with PPi in the range of 1.8 × 10⁻⁵ mol L⁻¹ to 2.4 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹. ATP, UTP, CTP, GTP, GDP and GMP cannot demonstrate the same spectral actions as PPi. Since the inputs of PPi and the phosphate anions obtain different logical outputs, the designed logic gates have good selectivity and can distinguish PPi from the other anions.