“Reactive” probe for fluoride: “Turn-on” fluorescent sensing in aqueous solution and bioimaging in living cells

Taking advantage of the special fluoride-promoted cleavage reaction of the Si-O bond, new chemical reaction-based probe (F1) towards fluoride anion was designed and synthesized. Upon the addition of fluoride ion (in NaF), the probe displayed apparent fluorescence changes from non-emission to strong green fluorescence. F1 gave response to F− with high sensitivity with the detection limit of 18 μM in HEPES-THF (9/1, v/v, 10 mM HEPES, pH 7.2). Furthermore, F1 was successfully applied to the detection of F− anion in HeLa cells with turn-on fluorescent signals.