Tracking the Stepwise Formation of a Water-Soluble Fluorescent Tb 12 Cluster for Efficient Doxorubicin Detection.

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an anthraquinone drug used for the efficient treatment of a variety of tumors in human beings. Unfortunately, its poor biodegradability causes incomplete metabolism in the body. Therefore, it is of great significance to synthesize a sensitive and selective material for DOX detection. In this paper, we report a water-soluble Tb 12 cluster and track its step-by-step formation (L → Tb 1 L 1 → Tb 2 L 1 → Tb 2 L 2 → Tb 3 L 2 → Tb 4 L 2 → Tb 12 L 6 ). Tb 12 can be used to determine the presence of DOX, which quenches the luminescence of the Tb 12 aqueous solution, and the detection limit can reach 13 nM ( K SV = 8.7 × 10 5 M -1 ). Tb 12 has advantages of high sensitivity and high selectivity for the detection of DOX in a simulated environment of human urine and serum.