The facile synthesis of an amphiphilic macrocycle and its “turn-on” dual targets sensing of both Zn2+ and lysosome triggered by supramolecular disassembly

ABSTRCT Engineering supramolecular disassembly for “turn-on” chemosensing receives increasingly interests in recent years, but remains less investigated. So far, there is no disassembly triggered bis-targets fluorescent sensors available. Toward this end, we design and synthesize a nonionic amphiphilic macrocyclic molecule (CTB). Two synthetic routes for CTB have been attempted and a facile and efficient one is found. At physiological pH, CTB could be able to specifically detect Zn2+ with “turned-on” fluorescence as Zn2+ disassembled its well-dispersed nanoparticle. CTB could stain the living L02 cell sand specifically localizes at its lysosomes organelle, which indicates that CTB a promising bis-targets sensor for further applications.