Versatile naphthalimides: Their optical and biological behavior and applications from sensing to therapeutic purposes

Naphthalimides and their derivatives have been extensively studied in various research fields such as supra molecular chemistry, sensor materials, and pharmaceutical chemistry, due to their ease of synthesis, the potential to tune their optical properties and biological activity. In this review, we highlight recent advances in the development of versatile naphthalimides as chemical sensors for metal ions, anions, reactive oxygen species, and cancer-associated enzymes, therapeutic agents, and photosensitizers, and described their optical response and sensing mechanisms, bioactivity and associated molecular docking studies, photosensitivity for photodynamic therapy and related density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Rational design concepts related to the chemical structure of naphthalimides in various applications ranging from sensing to therapeutic purposes are described. Additionally, this review demonstrates the behavior of these naphthalimides with a variety of analytical methods such as absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass analyses, fluorescence confocal microscopic studies, molecular dynamics simulation, DTF calculation, molecular docking studies, and antiproliferative experiments in vitro and in vivo. We hope that this review will help in the future advances of versatile naphthalimides and in the design of optical and biological validation studies. Prospects for future research directions are provided by highlighting the optical and biological benefits of naphthalimides.