Abstract

Diabetes is an incurable disease known to have severe acute and chronic side effects, namely blindness, heart disease or kidney failure, among others[1-3]. While monitoring the disease marker glucose in blood prolongs life expectancy, non-invasive continuous monitoring systems currently aren’t available[1-3]. The blood-glucose range for a healthy person is ~3-8mM, increasing to up to 40mM for people with diabetes[3], where the related glucose levels in the ocular fluid are 0.05-0.5mM increasing to up to 5mM for diabetics[3]. Consequently, there is considerable interested in using ocular fluid as a sample medium for tracking the disease marker. In this context, boronic acid (BA) sugar sensors have been investigated for potential use in sensing devices, like smart contact lenses[1-3]. The Lewis acidic BA moiety of the sensor is known for its strong interaction with diols[1-3]. On interaction with diols e.g. sugars, the anionic boronate form is produced leading to a decrease in the fluorescence intensity of the BA sensor with increasing sugar concentrations[1-3]. In this abstract, the synthesis and fluorescence studies of novel BA derivatives for colorimetric sugar sensing are presented. These BA sensors have been synthesised via a one-step nucleophilic substitution reaction[1-2]. The newly synthesised BA sensors were compared in terms of their fluorescence, sensitivity to glucose and their sensing range with the BA sensor - m-[N-[(3-boronobenzyl)-6-methoxyquinolinium bromide]] which has been studied previously for its sugar sensing capabilities at physiological pH[1-2].