Fe(III) induced fluorescent probe based on triamine and rhodamine derivatives and its applications in biological imaging

Abstract It is important to design a sensitive and efficient probe for detecting Fe3+ in environment and organisms. In this work, a rhodamine-based probe (RBTN) was designed by acylation reaction at high temperature. RBTN has a good specific fluorescence sensing for Fe3+ in the EtOH/H2O (1:1, v/v, HEPES, 0.5 mM, pH = 7.3) solution. The reversibility between RBTN and Fe3+ was confirmed by adding Na4P2O7. At the same time, RBTN has a lower detection limit, as low as 0.148 μM. In addition, RBTN can be used to detect Fe3+ in environmental water samples, and the recovery rate of Fe3+ is higher. Finally, biological experiments confirmed that RBTN could be used to detect Fe3+ in cells, vivo and plant tissues.