Construction of a water-soluble fluorescent probe for copper (II) ion detection in live cells and food products.

The quality of wine can be affected by excess Cu ²⁺ due to the occurrence of oxidation reactions or precipitation. Therefore, it is essential to use simple and effective testing methods to ensure the Cu ²⁺ content in wine. In this work, we designed and synthesized a rhodamine polymer fluorescent probe (PEG-R). The water solubility of PEG-R was improved by the introduction of polyethylene glycol, which improved the performance and broadened its application in the food field. The PEG-R was characterized by high sensitivity, selectivity and fast response to Cu ²⁺ and was able to complete the response process within 30 s, with approximately 29-fold fluorescence enhancement of the probe after exposure to Cu ²⁺ , the limit of detection (LOD) was 1.295 × 10 ^-6 M. The probe can be used for the determination of Cu ²⁺ in living cells, zebrafish, white wine and food products, and it was made into practical gels and test strips.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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