New color chemosensors for monosaccharides based on azo dyes.

Sugar detection is important for many applications. New developments in sugar signaling would provide new technologies to monitor glucose and other sugars. Azo dye 1 presents a new way to build molecular color sensors for monosaccharides. The boronic acid group is used as chelator group for monosaccharides and linked directly in resonance with the aromatic dye. Dye 1 shows a color change, from orange to purple, in the presence of sugar at neutral pH. [structure: see text]