The synthesis of polarity-sensitive fluorescent dyes based on the BODIPY chromophore

Two novel BODIPY dyes were synthesized, and their fluorescence characteristics studied in different solvents. Both dyes were extremely sensitive to solvent polarity. Their fluorescence intensities were very low in DMSO but increased more than 80 times in chloroform; similar behaviour was found in fluorescence quantum yield, which was enhanced ∼60-fold. Both dyes displayed fluorescence enhancement with bovine serum albumin, which illustrated that the two probes were very sensitive to polarity change and, therefore, may be valuable as microenvironment-sensitive probes in biochemical research.