Blue and green emission-transformed fluorescent copolymer: Specific detection of levodopa of anti-Parkinson drug in human serum

Levodopa, commonly used anti-Parkinson drugs in the clinic, is the most significant prodrug of dopamine that plays important roles in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Therefore, monitoring content of levodopa of anti-parkinson drugs in human serum is extremely necessary. Herein, a simple, fast and low-cost method for levodopa detection is proposed depending on the in situ formation of blue and green emission fluorescent copolymer (FCP). The proposed method is based on the conversion of fluorescence emission peak of FCP from blue (430 nm) to green emission (535 nm) in 2 h. In this sensing system, both blue and green emission exhibit a high selectivity and sensitivity for levodopa determination in the range from 0 to 50 μM with a detection limit of 0.2 μM and 0.36 μM, respectively. Among them green emission FCP shows excellent recovery even at human serum concentrations up to 30%. Additionally, the proposed method was successfully applied to assess the content of levodopa in three anti-Parkinson drugs (carbidopa and levodopa CR tablets, levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride tablets, and levodopa tablets). More importantly, the levodopa determination of three anti-Parkinson drugs in human serum also exhibit an excellent recovery. Therefore, our strategy provides a promising method for mechanism study and treatment of Parkinson's disease.