Recognition of Cations and Anions by Lanthanide Complexes

Abstract

Transition metal cations and oxoanions are involved in many biological and environmental processes. Biologically, these ions have roles in aging and in the pathogenesis of a wide variety of disorders including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, inflammation, reperfusion injury, bacterial infection, and cancer. Environmentally, free heavy metals are toxic to aquatic life and anions necessary for growth and development accumulate to form nutrient rich waterways that induce toxic algae blooms. Our understanding of the physiological role and impact of each of the physiologically relevant transition metal ions and oxoanions, and of the interplay between the different species involved in these disorders, is still incomplete due to the difficulty in selectively imaging several of these species simultaneously in vitro (in test tube/lab experiments) and the complete inability to do so in vivo (in living systems). Given the importance of these ions in a multitude of diseases and environmental health, an importance increasingly highlighted in current research, there is a strong unmet need for novel molecular complexes that readily enable concomitant imaging of multiple ions in different environments with high sensitivity and selectivity.