[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Fluorescent sensors are very useful tools for exploring chemical biology and advanced medical research. Herein, we propose four different fluorescent sensor systems for the recognition of some important biological molecules. The first sensor system is a multi-component fluorescent sensor complex for the sensing of glycolipids. The glycolipid sensor system is a novel design that takes advantage of supramolecular self-assembly. Results show that it can bind with both the sugar headgroup and hydrocarbon tail of glycolipids, and turn on the fluorescence of the sensor system. The second sensor is a cell-impermeable fluorescent sensor system for the recognition and extraction of glycolipids from vesicles. To avoid the fluorescence enhancement caused by the hydrophobic effect from cell membrane, we designed a series of cell-impermeable sensor complexes. In addition, these complexes were fully explored by vesicle studies. Another fluorescent sensor is NS600 which was developed for detecting and imaging glutamate in neurons. This sensor system that utilizes a nucleophilic aromatic substitution for glutamate binding, and produces a 270-fold fluorescence enchantment upon glutamate binding. Also, it overcomes drawbacks of previous glutamate sensors including low signal response and poor sensitivity. It enables a clear and accurate visualization of glutamate in cultural neurons. The last sensor is NS570, a cell-impermeable glutamate sensor which could be loaded into synaptic vesicles by vesicle cycling. This sensor is a reversible chemical sensor that gives a 2600-fold fluorescence enhancement upon the titration with glutamate and can be used to monitor the release of neuronal glutamate in real time.
