Rapid and Selective 19 F NMR-Based Sensors for Fingerprint Identification of Ribose.

Ribose plays an important role in the process of life. Excessive ribose in the human cerebrospinal fluid or urine can be used as an early diagnostic marker of leukoencephalopathy. Fluorinated phenylboronic acid combined with ¹⁹ F NMR spectroscopy was a powerful method for molecular recognition. However, phenylboronic acid-based sensors for selective detection of ribose are rarely reported in the literature. In this study, the rapid and highly selective recognition of ribose was studied by ¹⁹ F NMR and 2-fluorophenylboric acid. It was found that 2-fluoro-phenylboric acid was an appropriate ¹⁹ F NMR-based sensor molecule for the determination of ribose under physiological conditions with high selectivity and robust anti-interference ability. When 2-fluorophenylboric acid was used for the detection of ribose in human urine without any sample pretreatment, a limit of detection of 78 μM was obtained at room temperature under given ¹⁹ F NMR experimental conditions (400 MHz, 512 scans, ca. 12 min), which can well meet the needs of practical application.