BODIPY-based fluorescent probe for selective detection of HSA in urine

Abstract Quantitative recognition of human serum albumin (HSA) is of great importance in the fields of biology and biomedicine. In biological fluids, HSA has been used as an important biomarker for disease early diagnosis. For example, microalbuminuria has been regarded as an early indicator of diabetic nephropathy. Therefore, it is of great significance to monitor HSA in urine. In this work, a BODIPY-based fluorescence probe, BDY-OH, was constructed for HSA detection, which showed a high signal to noise ratio and high selectivity. In addition, plot of fluorescence intensity exhibited a 90-fold enhancement and a good linear correlation from 0 mg/mL to 0.4 mg/mL. Encouraged by the outstanding properties, the ability of BDY-OH to distinguish proteinuria from normal urine was tested among 39 clinical urine samples and the excellent recognition rate of 89.7% suggested a great significance for the early diagnosis of kidney related diseases. We look forward to using the BDY-OH method as a new tool for preclinical diagnosis of HSA in urine in the future.