Phototriggered release of amine from a cucurbituril macrocycle.

A method for the phototriggered release of a biogenic amine from the host-guest complex with the cucurbit[7]uril macrocycle in aqueous solution was devised. The approach exploits a photoinduced pH jump from 8 to 5, combined with the pH-dependent switching of the competitive capacity of a guest dye. The fluorescence fingerprint of the competitor can be used to monitor the amine release in the micromolar concentration regime.