Development and Elucidation of a Novel Fluorescent Boron-Sensor for the Analysis of Boronic Acid-Containing Compounds

Novel boron-containing drugs have recently been suggested as a new class of pharmaceuticals. However, the majority of current boron-detection techniques require expensive facilities and/or tedious pretreatment methods. Thus, to develop a novel and convenient detection method for boron-based pharmaceuticals, imine-type boron-chelating-ligands were previously synthesized for use in a fluorescent sensor for boronic acid containing compounds. However, the fluorescence quantum yield of the imine-type sensor was particularly low, and the sensor was easily decomposed in aqueous media. Thus, in this paper, we report the development of a novel, convenient, and stable fluorescent boron-sensor based on O- and N-chelation (i.e., 2-(pyridine-2yl)phenol), and a corresponding method for the quantitative and qualitative detection of boronic acid-containing compounds using this commercially available sensor is presented.