Design Strategy of Infrared 4-Hydroxybenzylidene-imidazolinone-Type Chromophores based on Intramolecular Charge Transfer:a Theoretical Perspective

Partial genetically encoded 4-hy-droxybenzylidene-imidazolinone(HBI)-type chromophores are new promising fluorescent probes,which are suitable for imaging and detection of living cells.How-ever,the lack of infrared chro-mophores hinders the develop-ment seriously.Here more than 30 HBI-type chromophores with reg-ular structure modifications were employed and typical spectral redshift change laws and mechanisms were investigated by quantum methods.Results show that both one-photon spectrum(OPS,absorption/emission)and two-photon absorption(TPA)can achieve large redshift via either extending conjugated lengths of frag-3 or enlarging conjugated areas of frag-1 of HBI skeleton.Spectral redshifts of all chromophores are highly related to intramolecular charge transfer(ICT),but neutral ones are closely related to the total ICT or electron-accept-ing-numbers of frag-3,and the high correlative factor of anions is the aromaticity of frag-2 bridge.The frag-2 bridge with high aromaticity can open a reverse charge transfer channel in anion relative to neutral,obtaining significant redshift.Based on analysis,a new 6-hydroxyl-naphthalene-imidazolinone(HNI)series,which have larger conjugated area in frag-1,are pre-dicted.The OPS and TPA of anionic HNI ones acquire about 76−96 nm and 119−146 nm red-shift relative to traditional HBI series respectively as a whole.The longest emission of anionic HNI-4 realizes more 244 nm redshift relative to HBI-1.Our work clarifies worthy spectral reg-ularities and redshift mechanisms of HBI-type chromophores and provides valuable design strategy for infrared chromophores synthesis in experiment.