Chemiluminescence chitosan hydrogels based on the luminol analog L-012 for highly sensitive detection of ROS.

Chemiluminescence probes have been widely used in a very broad field including immunoassay or non-immunoassay diagnostic and monitoring techniques as well as biosensors. The luminol analog L012 as a chemiluminescence probe was applied in the detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, the short chemiluminescence time of L012 limits its application in imaging in vivo. In this study, we developed chemiluminescence chitosan hydrogels L012-Cs-Co2+ based on a slow-diffusion-controlled heterogeneous catalytic mechanism. The hydrogels can emit strong chemiluminescence in the presence of H2O2, which can be observed by naked eyes in the darkroom within 60 min. They also exhibited high sensitivity towards H2O2 with the calculated detection limit of 8.7 × 10−8 M. In addition, it was successfully applied in imaging of H2O2 in vivo.