Fluorescent chemosensors manipulated by dual/triple interplaying sensing mechanisms

Fluorescence imaging is a powerful approach for noninvasive and real-time visualization and tracking of biomolecules and biological processes in living systems. The fluorescent chemosensors with dual/triple interplaying sensing mechanisms tend to provide diverse fluorescence signals or amplify the response signals, which are propitious to simultaneously track multiple analytes or to improve the selectivity and sensitivity of the chemosensors. Thus, the development of dual/triple sensing mechanism-based chemosensors has attracted great interest recently. This review highlights the representative cases of the fluorescent chemosensors with dual/triple interplaying sensing mechanisms published since 2010, and these chemosensors are classified according to the types of the interplaying sensing mechanisms, including ICT-FRET, PET-FRET, PET-ICT-ESIPT, etc.