Fabrication of non-enzymatic optical glucose sensors based on boronic acid derivatives

摘要

Diabetes is an incurable disease known to have severe acute and chronic side effects, namely blindness, heart disease or kidney failure, among others[1-3]. While monitoring the disease marker glucose in blood prolongs life expectancy, non-invasive continuous monitoring systems currently aren’t available[1-3]. The blood-glucose range for a healthy person is ~3-8mM, increasing to up to 40mM for people with diabetes[3], where the related glucose levels in the ocular fluid are 0.05-0.5mM increasing to up to 5mM for diabetics[3]. Consequently, there is considerable interested in using ocular fluid as a sample medium for tracking the disease marker. udIn this context, boronic acid (BA) sugar sensors have been investigated for potential use in sensing devices, like smart contact lenses[1-3]. The Lewis acidic BA moiety of the sensor is known for its strong interaction with diols[1-3]. On interaction with diols e.g. sugars, the anionic boronate form is produced leading to a decrease in the fluorescence intensity of the BA sensor with increasing sugar concentrations[1-3].udIn this abstract, the synthesis and fluorescence studies of novel BA derivatives for colorimetric sugar sensing are presented. These BA sensors have been synthesised via a one-step nucleophilic substitution reaction[1-2]. The newly synthesised BA sensors were compared in terms of their fluorescence, sensitivity to glucose and their sensing range with the BA sensor - m-[N-[(3-boronobenzyl)-6-methoxyquinolinium bromide]] which has been studied previously for its sugar sensing capabilities at physiological pH[1-2].