A steroid-salen conjugate for zinc ion recognition and its applications in test-strips, living cells imaging, and cascade recognition for dihydrogen phosphate

A novel Zn2+ ion chemosensor 1 has been developed based on deoxycholic acid and salen motifs, and this chemosensor can be used in test-strips and living cells imaging for Zn2+ ion through a turn-on effect. Moreover, the resulting [1·Zn2+] complex exhibits turn-off response toward H2PO4− ion, leading to the fabrication of an INHIBIT (INH) logic gate using Zn2+ ion and H2PO4− ion as inputs and the emission of 1 as outputs, respectively. This line of research not only enriches the library of Zn2+ ion sensors, but also expands the applications of natural products-based chemosensors.