Abstract:
Two benzimidazole-based zinc complexes
[(Zn)2(L2)2Cl2(DMSO)2] (R1) and [Zn(L2)2(NO3)2(H2O)2] (R2) were
synthesized and characterized with various spectroscopic data.
The single X-ray structure determination reveals that complex
R1 is dinuclear and tetrahedral in geometry, while complex R2
is mononuclear and octahedral in geometry. Further, both zinc
complexes were investigated for pyrophosphate sensing in an
aqueous medium. Complex R1 is found to be selective towards
pyrophosphate; it leads to 5.5-fold enhancement in the sion intensity due to aggregation-induced emission. However,
complex R2 has shown binding with all, ATP, AMP, ADP, and
pyrophosphate, which is attributed to the chelate effect. Consequently, complex R1 was utilized for the intracellular detection
of pyrophosphate in HeLa cells. Furthermore, the PPi based zinc
complex R1 is also used as a bio-analytical tool to construct a
real-time fluorescence assay for the enzymatic activity of
alkaline phosphatases (ALP).
