Assembly of Water‐Soluble Sugar‐Coated AIE‐Active Fluorescent Organic Nanoparticles for the Detection of Ginsenosides Based on Carbohydrate‐Carbohydrate Interactions

A series of water‐soluble turn–on fluorescent organic nanoparticles (FONs) were designed and assembled for the detection of ginsenosides based on carbohydrate‐carbohydrate interactions (CCIs) and aggregation‐induced emission mechanism. Especially, the tetraphenylethylene luminogen coated by four sialic acids (TPE4S) exhibited a considerably high fluorescence enhancement (32‐fold) upon addition of polyglycosylated protopanaxadiol (PPD) derivatives. It is the first time that CCIs were employed for probing amphiphilic ginsenosides effectively. Our current results provide a novel sensing strategy using water‐soluble FONs to detect widely existing saponins with important biological activities. Sweet detection! It is the first time that carbohydrate‐carbohydrate interactions (CCIs) were successfully adopted in the selective recognition of ginsenosides (GSs) via the assembly of water‐soluble fluorescent organic nanoparticles.