Two-Component Optical Sugar Sensing Using Boronic Acid-Substituted Viologens with Anionic Fluorescent Dyes

The design and synthesis of chemosensors for biologically important molecules has developed into a major research area. Progress has been driven by advances in the analytical capabilities of biologists and chemists and from medical professionals whose practices lay increasing emphasis on accurately monitoring a patient’s biochemical balance. In particular, medical providers are interested in the accurate and real-time measurement of blood glucose levels for diabetic patients. The shortcomings of existing glucose detection methods available to both patient and clinician have inspired the development of many new glucose sensing strategies over the past fifteen years. Many of these are fluorescence-based systems that rely on the use of glucose oxidase. A large number of non-enzymatic glucose sensing systems, however, have also been developed.1 Many of these non-enzymatic systems rely on a signal derived from the modulated emission of a fluorophore. Such modulation can be made to occur upon glucose binding to a boronic acid receptor.