Issue 12, 2019

Excited state proton transfer based fluorescent molecular probes and their application in studying lipid bilayer membranes

Abstract

Molecules with ionizable protons, with different proton transfer efficiencies in the excited and ground states, show excited state prototropism (ESPT). In suitable proton donating/accepting environments, ESPT of a molecule can result in the observation of emissions from different prototropic species, each characterized by different emission spectra and different emission lifetimes. In condensed media, the immediate environment around the ESPT molecule can significantly influence the emission spectral parameters of different prototropic species. This forms the basis of ESPT based fluorescence sensing. The concept of ESPT has been widely used for probing dynamical and structural information of micro-heterogeneous media like micelles, polymers, lipid bilayer membranes, etc. ESPT molecules like naphthol and intra-molecular ESPT (ESIPT) molecules like hydroxyflavones etc., are said to be good multi-state fluorescent molecular probes if (i) the partitioning of these molecules to a micro-heterogeneous organized medium is more efficient, and (ii) the molecules possess distinct excitation and emission wavelengths corresponding to their different prototropic forms. The fluorescence of different prototropic forms shows a sensitive response towards the change in the local environment around the micro-heterogeneous organized medium concerning the physical properties, local structure, and dynamics. This review mainly comprises the work carried out on ESPT fluorescence molecular probing of biomimetic liposomes/lipid bilayer membranes from 1990 onwards.

Graphical abstract: Excited state proton transfer based fluorescent molecular probes and their application in studying lipid bilayer membranes

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
12 Jul 2019
Accepted
30 Oct 2019
First published
07 Nov 2019

Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2019,18, 2830-2848

Excited state proton transfer based fluorescent molecular probes and their application in studying lipid bilayer membranes

M. Mohapatra and A. K. Mishra, Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2019, 18, 2830 DOI: 10.1039/C9PP00294D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements