A commercial cyanine dye IR-780 and a thioether-containing dicarboxylic acid ligand were used to construct the near-infrared fluorescent probe, which was used as a near-infrared fluorescent indicator for the determination of mercury ions in water and in living cells. This indicator displayed high specificity towards Hg(2+) without any interference from other detecting species. Especially, the emission at 790nm dramatically increased more than 25 times after interacting with Hg(2+). The binding experiment showed that the indicator formed 1:1 complex with Hg(2+). More, this indicator could be ap...
