Synthesis of rhodamine based organic nanorods for efficient chemosensor probe for Al (III) ions and its biological applications

- A novel rhodamine-based organic nanorods (ONRs) was synthesized and characterized.
- The X-ray crystal structure analyses exhibit the spirolactam of rhodamine derivative RBD2.
- ONRs highly selective towards Al3+ ions over other metal ions.
- The 1:1 stoichiometric structure between ONRs and Al3+ ions were supported by Job's plot, Benesi-Hildebrand plot and DFT theoretical calculations.
- ONRs fluorescent sensor was used in imaging Al3+ ions in cultured HeLa cells.

A novel highly selective rhodamine based organic nanorods (ONRs) was successfully designed and synthesised, which showed both absorption and fluorescence turn-on responses for Al3+ ions in aqueous solution. The ONRs possess strong fluorescence emission in aqueous solution. These spectral changes are sufficient to detection of Al3+ ions in the visible region of the spectrum and thus support naked eye detection. The aforesaid studies reveal that ONRs−Al3+ complex is highly selective and fully reversible in presence of sulphide anions. This study raises the new possibility of a highly selective and sensitive ONRs having multifunctional detection, including cation and anions, using a successive fluorescence response strategy in biological systems. Besides, the fluorescence microscopic studies confirmed that the fluorescent probe ONRs could be used as an imaging probe for detection of uptake of Al3+ ions in HeLa cells.

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