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A mercury (II) sensor has been proposed based on Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) between N,N'-dioctadecyl thiacyanine perchlorate (NK) and Octadecyl rhodamine B chloride (RhB). Out of these two molecules NK is sensitive to Hg2+ ions due to presence of sulfur atom in it. Accordingly, presence of Hg2+ ions affects the NK fluorescence as well as FRET from NK to RhB. Our results showed that NK fluorescence intensity and FRET efficiency linearly decreases with increase in Hg2+ ion concentration. With proper optimization present system under investigations can be used to sense Hg2+ ions in aqueous solution with detection limit of 9.13 ppb. Advantage of this present system is that it is very simple compared to the other FRET based system and also it works under aqueous environment. This method has also been tested using real lake water and satisfactory results were obtained., Comment: 45 pages, 5 figures

This communication reports the effect of DNA conformation on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency between two laser dyes in layer by layer (LbL) self assembled film. The dyes Acraflavine and Rhodamine B were attached onto the negative phosphate backbones of DNA in LbL film through electrostatic attraction. Then FRET between these dyes was investigated. Increase in pH or temperature causes the denaturation of DNA followed by coil formation of single stranded DNA. As a result the FRET efficiency also changed along with it. These observations demonstrated that by observing the change in FRET efficiency between two laser dyes in presence of DNA it is possible to detect the altered DNA conformation in the changed environment., Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures

A method is presented for the sensing of ions by determining the concentration of corresponding salts (KCl, NaCl, MgCl2, CaCl2, FeCl3, FeSO4, AlCl3) in water, based on Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) process. The principle of the proposed sensor is based on the change of FRET efficiency between two laser dyes Acriflavine and Rhodamine B in presence of different ions (K+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Fe2+, Fe3+, Al3+). Nanodimensional clay platelet laponite was used to enhance the efficiency of the sensor., Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures

The applications of Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) have expanded tremendously in the last 25 years, and the technique has become a staple technique in many biological and biophysical fields. FRET can be used as spectroscopic ruler in various areas such as structural elucidation of biological molecules and their interactions, in vitro assays, in vivo monitoring in cellular research, nucleic acid analysis, signal transduction, light harvesting, and metallic nanomaterials etc. Based on the mechanism of FRET a variety of novel chemical sensors and Biosensors have been developed. This review highlights the recent applications of sensitive and selective ratiometric FRET based sensors., Comment: 28 pages, 15 figures