Chemiluminescence determination of human serum albumin based on Co2+-catalyzed 2-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-4,5-di(2-furyl) imidazole/H2O2 system

Abstract

In this paper, the chemiluminescence (CL) reaction of 2-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-4,5-di(2-furyl) imidazole (t-BDFI) and H₂O₂ was investigated in alkaline medium. The H₂O₂ could directly oxidize t-BDFI to produce CL emission. The effects of some metal ions on CL of the t-BDFI/H₂O₂ system were examined. The results indicated that the addition of Co²⁺ into the t-BDFI/H₂O₂ CL system could induce significant enhancement of the CL signal. A CL system of t-BDFI/H₂O₂/Co²⁺ was developed. The experiment on the effect of human serum albumin (HSA) on the t-BDFI/H₂O₂/Co²⁺ CL system was carried out, and the result indicated that HSA could effectively inhibit the CL signal of this reaction. The inhibited CL intensity is linearly related to the logarithm of concentration of HSA. The linear range of the calibration curve is 5.0 × 10⁻⁸ to 1.0 × 10⁻⁶ mol L⁻¹, and the corresponding detection limit (3σ) is 2.1 × 10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹. Based on this study, a novel CL method has been developed for the determination of HSA with high sensitivity and good selectivity. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of HSA in human serum samples. This may intrigue researchers into gaining a new interest in investigating the CL property of heterocyclic imidazole derivatives.