Coordination polymers of Tb³⁺/Nucleotide as smart chemical nose/tongue toward pattern-recognition-based and time-resolved fluorescence sensing

The abundant functional groups on guanosine monophosphate (GMP)make it possible to interact with various metal ions. The subtle difference in the structure of GMP and deoxy-guanosine monophosphate (dGMP)coupled with Tb3+ can be readily exploited to form two coordination polymers, which have been unveiled as two time-resolved fluorescence (TRF)sensing reporters (Tb-GMP and Tb-dGMP)in our study. Based on this finding, herein, we have proposed a novel TRF orthogonal sensing array (Tb-GMP/dGMP)for pattern-recognition-based sensing of various metal ions. In addition, upon integration of some thiol-affinity metal ions, Tb-GMP/dGMP can be further extended to construct two metal ion-involved pattern-recognition-based sensor arrays (Tb-GMP/dGMP-Cu, Tb-GMP/dGMP-Ag)for the TRF sensing different levels of disease-relevant biothiols in biofluids, illustrating the powerful and multifunctional capabilities of the Tb-GMP/dGMP system and would inspire simpler and more widespread designs of chemical nose/tongue-based applications.