Construction and Application of 1, 8-Naphthalimide-Based Multi-Analyte Fluorescent Probes

Life are governed by cellular complex metabolic processes. One of the on-going endeavours in the scientific community is to study and understand these dynamic biochemical reactions and the roles of biomolecules in sustaining life. Fluorescent probes have been widely used in the visualization of analytes in physiological and pathological processes, due to their advantages such as easy operation, low cost, high sensitivity, capability of multi-channel and real-time visualization in vivo. However, most fluorescent probes can only respond to single analyte, which is not suitable to mornitor multiple analytes in complex biological system. In recent five years, significantly more multi-analyte fluorescent probes based on 1, 8-naphthimide fluorophore have been designed in biological or environmental field. Categorized by the fluorescent mechanisms, such as single fluorescent mechanism (e. g. photoinduced electron transfer (PET), intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)), dual fluorescent mechanisms (e. g. PET-ICT, PET-FRET, and ICT-FRET) and so on, this review highlights the recent progress in designing strategies, corresponding recognition process, optical property and cell imaging of 1, 8-naphthalimide-based multi-analyte fluorescent probes. Finally, the development trend and possible challenges of such fluorescent probes are prospected.