The discovery of an iron(III)-selective ratiometric fluorescent probe to detect and visualize endogenous labile iron pools in living organisms at the molecular level has been long awaited. Herein we report the first dual colorimetric and ratiometric fluorescent probe naphtho[2,1-b][1,10]phenanthroline for selective and 'direct' visualization of labile iron(III) pools in a multicellular organism, Caenorhabditis elegans.

A new series of thermally stable blue light-emitting nonplanar pyrenylarenes having an amine donor and a nitrile acceptor group was prepared from a ketene-S,S-acetal under conventional heating and/or microwave irradiation. The photophysical, electrochemical, and optical behavior of donor-acceptor pyrenylarenes are demonstrated. The performance of blue light-emitting pyrenylarenes was investigated by fabricating a multilayer device with the device configuration of ITO/PEDOT:PSS (40 nm)/NPB (30 nm)/pyrenylarene (55 nm)/BCP (8 nm)/LiF (0.6 nm)/Al (200 nm), which exhibited low turn-on voltage (5 V) with luminance efficiency of 0.8 Cd/A with nonaggregation behavior in both solution and solid state.

Sterically hindered naphthalene-substituted biphenyls and terphenyls were synthesized in good yields, by Michael addition of a conjugate base of core-substituted phenylacetones to substituted 2-oxo-2H-pyran-3-carbonitriles at room temperature under alkaline conditions. These diversely functionalized benzenes (1,2-teraryls or 1,3-teraryls), bearing naphthyl and substituted aryl rings, show the phenomenon of atropisomerism, with one or two stereogenic biaryl axes. The resolution of the respective four atropisomers of the naphthalene-substituted biphenyls and terphenyls bearing 1,2-type or 1,3-type chiral biaryl axes was achieved by HPLC on a chiral phase. The absolute stereostructures of 6a and 9a were determined by the combination of experimental electronic circular dichroism (ECD) investigations and quantum-chemical circular dichroism (QC-CD) calculations. For the atropisomerization of (1M,6M)-6a and (1M,5M)-9a to their (M,P)- and (P,M)-diastereomer, respectively, the possible transition states were investigated and the interconversion barriers (ΔG) were theoretically predicted. This study provides a general protocol for the synthesis, resolution, and stereochemical characterization of rotationally hindered naphthalene-substituted biphenyls and terphenyls. The strategy may be applied to investigate other, similarly hindered biaryl or teraryl systems either derived from natural sources or prepared through synthetic approaches.

A new and efficient approach to a series of highly fluorescent non-aggregating donor-acceptor 1,8-naphthyridines is described. Examination of the photophysical properties of the 1,8naphthyridines revealed that the presence of donor-acceptor functionality leads to bright green fluorescence with solvatochromism in solvents of differing polarities. The application of these molecules in metal sensing was also explored.

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