Luminescent chiral lanthanide(III) complexes as potential molecular probes

摘要

This perspective gives an introduction into the design of luminescent lanthanide(III)-containingcomplexes possessing chiral properties and used to probe biological materials. The first part brieflydescribes general principles, focusing on the optical aspect (i.e. lanthanide luminescence, sensitizationprocesses) of the most emissive trivalent lanthanide ions, europium and terbium, incorporated intomolecular luminescent edifices. This is followed by a short discussion on the importance of chirality inthe biological and pharmaceutical fields. The second part is devoted to the assessment of the chiropticalspectroscopic tools available (typically circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence) andthe strategies used to introduce a chiral feature into luminescent lanthanide(III) complexes (chiralstructure resulting from a chiral arrangement of the ligand molecules surrounding the luminescentcenter or presence of chiral centers in the ligand molecules). Finally, the last part illustrates thesefundamental principles with recent selected examples of such chiral luminescent lanthanide-basedcompounds used as potential probes of biomolecular substrates.