Neutral cholic acid–coumarin conjugate exhibit excellent anion binding properties by cooperative aryl CH and amide NH segments

It is revealed by the experimental and theoretical results that the coumarin group can provide CH segments as hydrogen bond donors by cooperation with the adjoining amide NH segments. With excellent biocompatibility, this receptor with coumarin as fluorescence sensors also have the potential to be used as an efficient and non-destructive probe for anion detection in living cells.

This work displays a new insight into the importance of coumarin group as anion recognition group, which is not well presented so far.