Dioxetanes amplifiers

Dioxetanes are beginning to have a tremendous impact on chemiluminescent methodologies for clinically relevant analytes. This impact is due to the development of dioxetanes as enzyme substrates in enzyme-amplified assays similar to the type described in Section 1.3.2. The evolution of the current generation of highly efficient substrates merits some comment. Schaap and co-workers (S8) showed that the naphthalene silyl ether shown in Fig. 40a could be triggered by fluoride ions to give chemiluminescence with a quantum yield of 0.01. On the other hand, the /nefa-disubstituted phenyl derivative in Fig. 40b is extremely efficient in a CIEEL chemiluminescence process (for reasons outlined in the previous section) with a quantum efficiency of 0.45. Subsequent studies showed that the naphthalene derivative in Fig. 40a with an 0-acetyl group instead of the silyl ether, could... 

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