Fluorescence Anion Chemosensor Array Based on Pyrenylboronic Acid

A novel fluorescence chemosensor array composed of pyrenylboronic acid-based probes for multi- anion detection has been developed. The pyrenylboronic acid derivatives showed fluorescence quenching or enhancement due to photoinduced electron transfer originating from anion binding. The recognition ability was assessed by fluorescence titrations and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Because the array is constructed with cross-reactive probes, the combination of differential binding affinities for anions (i.e., fluoride, acetate, oxalate, malonate, citrate, dihydrogen phosphate, and pyrophosphate) and pattern recognitions, such as linear discriminant analysis, offered a successful simultaneous anion detection with a classification rate of 100%. Furthermore, the chemosensor array allowed for quantitative prediction of oxalate, malonate, and citrate in mixtures using a support vector machine. Importantly, the array system employs low-cost and commercially available reagents as probes. Thus, this study could lead to the development of user-friendly and high-throughput methods to detect a variety of analytes in complicated systems.