Chemiluminescence of Lucigenin Allantoin and Its Application for the Detection of Allantoin

Allantoin has been reported as a promising biomarker for monitoring of oxidative stress in humans and widely utilized in a variety of topical pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Currently, the detection of allantoin is achieved by using chromatographic coupled techniques, which needs sample pre-extraction, derivatization, complex matrixes, and expensive instrumentation. Herein we report both the intense chemiluminescence of allantoin with lucigenin and the chemiluminescent detection of allantoin for the first time. The lucigenin-allantoin system demonstrated chemiluminescence emission intensity 17 times higher than that of the classic lucigenin hydrogen peroxide system. Based on this fascinating phenomenon, a novel chemiluminescence method has been developed for the sensitive and selective allantoin determination with the combination of flow injection analysis. This method shows a linear calibration curve in the range 0.1-3000 mu M with a detection limit (3 sigma/s) of 0.03 mu M. Moreover, it was successfully utilized for the determination of allantoin in human eye drop and real urine samples after simple dilution with water. It shows excellent recoveries in the range 94.0-101.7%, and each measurement takes a very short time. This method exhibits potential advantages in the form of simplicity, rapidity, sensitivity, selectivity, and low cost. Allantoin could be an effective candidate for constructing new chemiluminescence systems, and it may provide a broad range of sensing applications.