Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is a neurotransmitter/hormone that is an important target in diagnostics. Development of an effective method for detecting it in the presence of other neurotransmitters is a challenging task. The electrochemical and fluorescent techniques commonly used have low selectivity in distinguishing among catecholamines. Herein, a small‐molecule organic probe with an activated furfural moiety is reported to exploit the nucleophilicity of epinephrine to generate a bright‐colored donor–acceptor Stenhouse adduct. Among nine common neurotransmitters or their analogues, only epinephrine was found to generate a unique colour change discernible with the naked eye, whereas the other ones remain unaffected. Under various in‐field detection conditions, including solution, droplet, and paper strip‐based detection, the colour change were also noticeable. The low detection limit of 1.37 nM and a limit of quantitation of 4.37 nM were achieved with simple UV/Vis methods in addition to the sub‐ppm level sensing under visual conditions with naked eyes. The probe could be used for practical colorimetric measurements as a point‐of‐care tool without any complex and expensive machinery, making this approach accessible to all. In addition, using a simple smartphone, the determination of epinephrine concentrations is possible by using machine‐learning techniques.

Sialic acid (SA) is an acidic monosaccharide present in the human brain and body fluids in the form of N-acetylneuraminic acid. It is also a well-known cancer biomarker. For decades, it has remained a challenging task to design synthetic receptors for SA. However, mainly because of the interference from other sugars with the receptors, it was challenging to differentiate SA from other sugars. Here, we report the development of a two-component aggregation-induced emissive (AIE) probes that can interact with SA and other saccharides via noncovalent interactions with unique emission fingerprints. Analysis of the output signals enabled the reliable detection and clear discrimination of SA in the presence of other saccharides with high accuracy. Further, its potential application in cellular glycan mapping has been explored by fluorescence imaging and surface-enhanced Raman scattering with MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.

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