Rational Design and Synthesis for Versatile FRET Ratiometric Sensor for Hg2+ and Fe2+: A Flexible 8-Hydroxyquinoline Benzoate Linked Bodipy-Porphyrin Dyad

A flexible 8-hydroxyquinoline benzoate linked Bodipy-porphyrin dyad has been designed, synthesized, and characterized. Binding of this dyad with Hg2+/Fe2+ induced just the opposite (promoting/restraining) influence on energy transfer from the Bodipy donor to the porphyrin acceptor, resulting in a remarkably different ratio change of two signal emissions, endowing this dyad as the first Bodipy-porphyrin-based versatile fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) ratiometric sensor for Hg2+ and Fe2+ ions, respectively.