Recent Advances of Organic Fluorescent Probes for Detection of Human Serum Albumin

Abstract

Human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant protein in human blood plasma, which plays important roles in physiological and biological processes, such as keeping the osmotic pressure and transporting small molecular ligands. The level of HSA in biological samples especially in blood serum can reveal several health conditions, and thus, quantitative determination of HSA has vital importance for disease diagnosis. In recent years, as the rapid development of fluorescent probe technique, a great number of fluorescent probes have been reported for sensitive and selective detection of HSA. This article summarizes recent reported organic-based fluorescent probes, subsequently carefully describes the chemical structures, sensing mechanisms, spectral features, limit of detection, and binding sites, and moreover, the future developments and prospects for HSA detection by using fluorescent probes have been discussed.