Specific Quenching of Natural Clusterization-Triggered Emission Probes for Rapid Fluorescent Detection of Antipsychotics.

The development of rapid, cost-effective fluorescent probes for antipsychotic drug detection remains challenging due to the synthetic complexity of conventional probes and limited exploration of natural alternatives. Herein, we pioneered bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a natural clusterization-triggered emission (CTE) probe for one-step detection of chlorpromazine hydrochloride (CPZ) and perphenazine (PPZ). The unique CTE property of BSA displayed concentration-dependent quenching with CPZ and PPZ. Moreover, the quenching effect achieved balance within 5 minutes and maintained stability for more than 30 minutes. Based on these advantages, the proposed detection platform showed rapid response, operational simplicity, visual signal readout, wide detection range, ultra-low detection limits, compared with other methods. Moreover, the assay method exhibited excellent selectivity, facilitating satisfactory reliability for the real sample assay. Thermodynamic analyses revealed distinct interaction mechanisms between BSA and antipsychotics, both inducing static quenching by suppressing clusterization-induced electron transitions. Overall, this research not only develops a novel assay method for CPZ and PPZ, but also broadens the application potential of the CTE effect in natural biomacromolecules. As the first demonstration of natural CTE probes for antipsychotic detection, this work opens new frontiers for sustainable analytical technologies by circumventing synthetic probe complexities and leveraging inherent biorecognition.