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Ratiometric Sensing of Azithromycin and Sulfide Using Dual Emissive Carbon Dots: A Turn On-Off-On Approach

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Abstract

A novel ratiometric fluorescence probe was developed for the determination of azithromycin (AZM) and sulfide ions based on the differential modulation of red emissive carbon dots (R-N@CDs) and blue emissive carbon dots (B-NS@CDs). The addition of sulfide anion selectively quenched the red emission of R-N@CDs while the blue emission of B-NS@CDs unaffected. Upon subsequent introduction of AZM to this R-N@CDs@sulfide system, the quenched red fluorescence was restored. Comprehensive characterization of the CDs was performed using UV-Vis, fluorescence, FTIR spectroscopy, XPS, and TEM. The proposed method exhibited excellent sensitivity and selectivity, with limits of detection of 0.33 µM for AZM and 0.21 µM for sulfide. Notably, this approach enabled direct detection of sulfide without requiring prior modulation of the CDs with metal ions, as is common in other reported methods. The ratiometric probe was successfully applied for the determination of AZM in biological fluids and sulfide in environmental water samples with high selectivity. This work presents the first fluorometric method for the detection of AZM in biological fluids.

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Funding

The authors express their gratitude to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University for providing funding for this research through the Research Group Funding program (grant code NU/RG/MRC/12/4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia

    Ashraf M. Mahmoud & Yahya S. Alqahtani

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

    Mohamed M. El-Wekil & Al-Montaser Bellah H. Ali

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  1. Ashraf M. Mahmoud
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  2. Yahya S. Alqahtani
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  4. Al-Montaser Bellah H. Ali
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Contributions

Ashraf M. Mahmoud: Designing and execution of ideas for sample preparation, characterization, theoretical calculation as well as manuscript writing, Yahya S. Alqahtani: Sample preparation, discussion of the results, review of the manuscript, Mohamed M. El-Wekil: Experimental suggestion, Al-Montaser Bellah H. Ali: Ideas, experiments, supervision for the experiment, result and discussion, manuscript writing, reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Al-Montaser Bellah H. Ali.

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The pharmacokinetic study was conducted in full compliance with ethical regulations, under a protocol approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Assiut University (02/2024/0095). The experiment adhered to the guiding principles in the Helsinki Declaration for humane treatment of animals.

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Mahmoud, A.M., Alqahtani, Y.S., El-Wekil, M.M. et al. Ratiometric Sensing of Azithromycin and Sulfide Using Dual Emissive Carbon Dots: A Turn On-Off-On Approach. J Fluoresc (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-024-03737-2

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