A new RNA-selective fluorescent dye integrated with a thiazole orange and a p-(methylthio)styryl moiety shows better nucleolus RNA staining and imaging performance in live cells than the commercial stains. It also exhibits excellent photostability, cell tolerance, and counterstain compatibility with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole for specific RNA–DNA colocalization in bioassays.

Terpyridine macrocycle 1 is shown to be a strong chelating agent for organic ammonium salts and also a useful chromophore in fluorescent sensing. It exhibits very good enantioselectivity (K_obs (S)/K_obs (R) = 3.8) in chiral discrimination of α-phenylglycine methyl ester hydrochloride (PhEtOMe).