Abstract
The use of electrochemiluminescence (ECL), i.e., chemiluminescence triggered by electrochemical stimulus, as emitting light source for microscopy is an emerging approach with different applications ranging from the visualization of nanomaterials to cell mapping. In this trend article, we give an overview of the state of the art in this new field with the purpose to illustrate all the possible applications so far explored as well as describing the mechanism underlying this transduction technique. The results discussed here would highlight the great potential of the combination between ECL and microscopy and how this marriage can turn into an innovative approach with specific application in analytical sciences.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bard JA, editor. Electrogenerated chemiluminescence. New York: Marcel Dekker; 2004.
Richter MM. Electrochemiluminescence (ECL). Chem Rev. 2004;104:3003–36.
Hesari M, Ding Z. Review—electrogenerated chemiluminescence: light years ahead. J Electrochem Soc. 2016;163:H3116–31.
Valenti G, Fiorani A, Li H, Sojic N, Paolucci F. Essential role of electrode materials in electrochemiluminescence applications. ChemElectroChem. 2016;3:1990–7.
Forster JR, Bertoncello P, Keyes TE. Electrogenerated chemiluminescence. Annu Rev Anal Chem. 2009;2:359–85.
Miao W. Electrogenerated chemiluminescence and its biorelated applications. Chem Rev. 2008;108:2506–53.
Gross EM, Durant HE, Hipp KN, Lai RY. Electrochemiluminescence detection in paper-based and other inexpensive microfluidic devices. ChemElectroChem. 2017;4:1594–603.
Li L, Chen Y, Zhu J-J. Recent advances in electrochemiluminescence analysis. Anal Chem. 2017;89:358–71.
Liu Z, Qi W, Xu G. Recent advances in electrochemiluminescence. Chem Soc Rev. 2015;44:3117–42.
Bertoncello P, Ugo P. Recent advances in electrochemiluminescence with quantum dots and arrays of nanoelectrodes. ChemElectroChem. 2017;4:1663–76.
Gross EM, Maddipati SS, Snyder SM. A review of electrogenerated chemiluminescent biosensors for assays in biological matrices. Bioanal. 2016;8:2071–89.
Huo X, Liu X, Liu J, Sukumaran P, Alwarappan S, Wong DKY. Strategic applications of nanomaterials as sensing platforms and signal amplification markers at electrochemical immunosensors. Electroanal. 2016;28:1730–49.
Rusling JF. Low-cost microfluidic arrays for protein-based cancer diagnostics using ECL detection. Interface Mag. 2016;25:47–51.
Juzgado A, Soldà A, Ostric A, Criado A, Valenti G, Rapino S, et al. Highly sensitive electrochemiluminescence detection of a prostate cancer biomarker. J Mater Chem B. 2017;5:6681–7.
Stewart AJ, Hendry J, Dennany L. Whole blood electrochemiluminescent detection of dopamine. Anal Chem. 2015;87:11847–53.
Sentic M, Milutinovic M, Kanoufi F, Manojlovic D, Arbault S, Sojic N. Mapping electrogenerated chemiluminescence reactivity in space: mechanistic insight into model systems used in immunoassays. Chem Sci. 2014;5:2568–72.
Roche Diagnostics Corp. 2018. www.roche.com
Meso Scale Discovery. 2018. www.mesoscale.com/en/technical_resources/our_technology/multi-array
Neves MMPS, González-García MB, Hernández-Santos D, Fanjul-Bolado P. A miniaturized flow injection analysis system for electrogenerated chemiluminescence−based assays. ChemElectroChem. 2017;4:1686–9.
Miao W, Choi JP, Bard AJ. Electrogenerated chemiluminescence 69: the Tris(2,2′-bipyridine) ruthenium (II), (Ru (bpy)32+)/tri-n-propylamine (TPrA) system revisited - a new route involving TPrA+ cation radicals. J Am Chem Soc. 2002;124:14478–85.
Daviddi E, Oleinick A, Svir I, Valenti G, Paolucci F, Amatore C. Theory and simulation for optimising electrogenerated chemiluminescence from Tris(2,2′-bipyridine)-ruthenium (II)-doped silica nanoparticles and tripropylamine. ChemElectroChem. 2017;4:1719–30.
Amatore C, Pebay C, Servant L, Sojic N, Szunerits S, Thouin L. Mapping electrochemiluminescence as generated at double-band microelectrodes by confocal microscopy under steady state. ChemPhysChem. 2006;7:1322–7.
Zu Y, Ding Z, Zhou J, Lee Y, Bard AJ. Scanning optical microscopy with an electrogenerated chemiluminescent light source at a nanometer tip. Anal Chem. 2001;73:2153–6.
Valenti G, Zangheri M, Sansaloni SE, Mirasoli M, Penicaud A, Roda A, et al. Transparent carbon nanotube network for efficient electrochemiluminescence devices. Chem Eur J. 2015;21:12640–5.
Sentic M, Virgilio F, Zanut A, Manojlovic D, Arbault S, Tormen M, et al. Microscopic imaging and tuning of electrogenerated chemiluminescence with boron-doped diamond nanoelectrode arrays. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2016;408:7085–94.
Bist I, Bhakta S, Jiang D, Keyes TE, Martin A, Forster RJ, et al. Evaluating metabolite-related DNA oxidation and adduct damage from aryl amines using a micro fl uidic ECL array. Anal Chem. 2017;89:12441–9.
Xu L, Li Y, Wu S, Liu X, Su B. Imaging latent fingerprints by electrochemiluminescence. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2012;51:8068–72.
Deiss F, LaFratta CN, Symer M, Blicharz TM, Sojic N, Walt DR. Multiplexed sandwich immunoassays using electrochemiluminescence imaging resolved at the single bead level. J Am Chem Soc. 2009;131:6088–9.
Kadimisetty K, Malla S, Sardesai NP, Joshi AA, Faria RC, Lee NH, et al. Automated multiplexed ecl immunoarrays for cancer biomarker proteins. Anal Chem. 2015;87:4472–8.
Kadimisetty K, Mosa IM, Malla S, Satterwhite-Warden JE, Kuhns TM, Faria RC, et al. 3D-printed supercapacitor-powered electrochemiluminescent protein immunoarray. Biosens Bioelectron. 2016;77:188–93.
Bentley CL, Edmondson J, Meloni GN, Perry D, Shkirskiy V, Unwin PR. nanoscale electrochemical mapping. Anal Chem. 2018;91:84–108.
Fan FRF, Bard AJ. Observing single nanoparticle collisions by electrogenerated chemiluminescence amplification. Nano Lett. 2008;8:1746–9.
Fan FRF, Park S, Zhu Y, Ruoff RS, Bard AJ. Electrogenerated chemiluminescence of partially oxidized highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surfaces and of graphene oxide nanoparticles. J Am Chem Soc. 2009;131:937–9.
Wilson AJ, Marchuk K, Willets KA. Imaging electrogenerated chemiluminescence at single gold nanowire electrodes. Nano Lett. 2015;15:6110–5.
Pan S, Liu J, Hill CM. Observation of local redox events at individual au nanoparticles using electrogenerated chemiluminescence microscopy. J Phys Chem C. 2015;119:27095–103.
Xu J, Huang P, Qin Y, Jiang D, Chen HY. Analysis of intracellular glucose at single cells using electrochemiluminescence imaging. Anal Chem. 2016;88:4609–12.
Valenti G, Scarabino S, Goudeau B, Lesch A, Jović M, Villani E, et al. Single cell electrochemiluminescence imaging: from the proof-of-concept to disposable device-based analysis. J Am Chem Soc. 2017;139:16830–7.
Voci S, Goudeau B, Valenti G, Lesch A, Jovic M, Rapino S, et al. Surface-confined electrochemiluminescence microscopy of cell membranes. J Am Chem Soc. 2018;140:14753–−14760.
Jiang X, Wang H, Yuan R, Chai Y. Functional three-dimensional porous conductive polymer hydrogels for sensitive electrochemiluminescence in situ detection of H2O2Released from live cells. Anal Chem. 2018;90:8462–9.
Liu G, Ma C, Jin BK, Chen Z, Zhu JJ. Direct electrochemiluminescence imaging of a single cell on a chitosan film modified electrode. Anal Chem. 2018;90:4801–6.
Zhou J, Ma G, Chen Y, Fang D, Jiang D, Chen HY. Electrochemiluminescence imaging for parallel single-cell analysis of active membrane cholesterol. Anal Chem. 2015;87:8138–43.
Jie G, Yuan J. Novel magnetic Fe 3O 4@CdSe composite quantum dot-based electrochemiluminescence detection of thrombin by a multiple DNA cycle amplification strategy. Anal Chem. 2012;84:2811–7.
Valenti G, Rampazzo E, Bonacchi S, Petrizza L, Marcaccio M, Montalti M, et al. Variable doping induces mechanism swapping in electrogenerated chemiluminescence of Ru (bpy)32+ Core − Shell silica nanoparticles. J Am Chem Soc. 2016;138:15935–42.
Funding
We thank the University of Bologna, Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università della Ricerca (FIRB RBAP11C58Y, PRIN-2010N3T9M4), FARB, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Published in the topical collection Young Investigators in (Bio-)Analytical Chemistry with guest editors Erin Baker, Kerstin Leopold, Francesco Ricci, and Wei Wang.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zanut, A., Fiorani, A., Rebeccani, S. et al. Electrochemiluminescence as emerging microscopy techniques. Anal Bioanal Chem 411, 4375–4382 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-01761-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-01761-x