Coumarin-based Fluorescent Probes for Bioimaging: Recent Applications and Developments

Coumarin-based derivatives have easy modification and tunable properties and have been synthesized and applied in many areas including pro-drugs, biomedical materials, and chemical and biological sensing. In this review, recent advances of coumarin-based fluorescent probes for biosensing are reported for metal ion imaging. Metal detection in living cells are highlighted with representative examples together with fluorescence response mechanisms such as Photoinduced Electron Transfer (PET), Intramolecular Charge Transfer (ICT), and Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). Some future perspectives are also briefly mentioned.