Quenching of Ofloxacin and Flumequine Fluorescence by Divalent Transition Metal Cations

This study examined the quenching of ofloxacin (OFL) and flumequine (FLU) fluorescence by $Cuj^{2+}$, $Ni^{2+}$, $Co^{2+}$ and $Mn^{2+}$ in an aqueous solution. The change in the fluorescence intensity and lifetime was measured at various temperatures as a function of the quencher concentration. According to the Stern-Volmer plots, the fluorescence emission was quenched by both collisions (dynamic quenching) and complex formation (static quenching) with the same quencher but the effect of static quenching was larger than that of dynamic quenching. Large static and dynamic quenching constants for both OFL and FLU support significant ion-dipole and orbital-orbital interactions between fluorophore and quencher. For both molecules, the static and dynamic quenching constants by $Cu^{2+}$ were the largest among all the metal quenchers examined in this study. In addition, both the static and dynamic quenching mechanisms by $Cu^{2+}$ were somewhat different from the quenching caused by other metals. Between $Ni^{2+}$ and FLU, a different form of chemical interaction was observed compared with the interaction by other metals. The change in the absorption spectra as a result of the addition of a quencher provided information on static quenching. With all these metals, the static quenching constant of FLU was larger than those of OFL. The fluorescence of OFL was quite insensitive to both the dynamic and static quenching compared with FLU. This property of OFL can be explained by the twisted intramolecular charge transfer in the excited state.