A Vibration‐Induced‐Emission‐Based Fluorescent Chemosensor for the Selective and Visual Recognition of Glucose

The development of chemosensors to detect analytes in biologically relevant solutions is a challenging task. We report the synthesis of a fluorescent receptor that combines vibration‐induced emission (VIE) and dynamic covalent chemistry for the detection of glucose in aqueous media. We show that the bis‐2‐(N‐methylaminomethyl)phenylboronic acid‐decorated N,N′‐diphenyl‐dihydrodibenzo[a,c]phenazine (DPAC) receptor 1 can detect glucose and discriminate between closely related monosaccharides including those commonly found in blood. Preliminary studies suggest monosaccharides bind to the DPAC‐receptor with a 1:1 stoichiometry to produce pseudomacrocyclic complexes, which in turn leads to distinct optical changes in the fluorescent emission of the receptor for each host. Moreover, the complexation‐induced change in emission can be detected visually and quantified in a ratiometric way. Our results highlight the potential of VIE‐type receptors for the quantitative determination of saccharides in biological samples. A novel sugar fluorescent chemosensor which combines a vibrational‐induced‐emission (VIE)‐active DPAC core and two N‐methylaminomethylphenylboronic acid moieties can detect glucose within seconds and discriminate between closely related monosaccharides including those commonly found in blood.