Discovering ester and ether derivatives of luminol as advanced chemiluminescence probes

A variety of luminol derivatives with N- and O-substitution have been synthesized with broad functional group tolerance. O-esterification has been demonstrated for the first time as a promising way to prepare enhanced CL reagents for sensing hemin, bloodstain and horseradish peroxidase (HRP). The most effective analogue with a deuterated acetyl group exhibited greater potential than luminol for bloodstain imaging and HRP imaging in western blotting (WB). In addition, O-etherification can greatly suppress CL signal that has been applied to design a CL probe for β-glucosidase (β-Glu). This study offers important and useful information regarding the luminol modification and shows great potential to use O-substituted analogues for enhanced CL analysis.