Determination of ethambutol by a sensitive fluorescent probe

Abstract The competitive reaction between ethambutol and two fluorescent probes (i.e., berberine and palmatine) for occupancy of the cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) cavity was studied by spectrofluorometry. The CB[7] reacts with these probes to form stable complexes, and the fluorescence intensity of the complexes is greatly enhanced. In addition, the excitation and emission wavelengths of their complexes moved to wavelengths of 343 nm and 495 nm, respectively. However, the addition of ethambutol dramatically quenches the fluorescence intensity of the two complexes. Accordingly, a couple of new fluorescence quenching methods for the determination of ethambutol were established. The methods can be applied for quantifying ethambutol. A linear relationship between the fluorescence quenching values (Δ F ) and ethambutol concentration exists in the range of 5.0–1000.0 ng mL −1 , with a correlation coefficient ( r ) of 0.9997. The detection limit is 1.7 ng mL −1 . The fluorescent probe of berberine has higher sensitivity than palmatine. This paper also discusses the mechanism of fluorescence indicator probes.