"Classical" applications of chemiluminescence and bioluminescence

Chemiluminescence and bioluminescence are powerful detection techniques used in such widely different areas as molecular biology, drug discovery, clinical diagnosis, food and hygiene control, environmental and forensic analysis. In this Chapter, analytical applications of chemiluminescence and bioluminescence in batch analytical formats (for examples, tubes or microtiter plates) are reviewed. The first part of the Chapter deals with applications of chemiluminescence, from the detection of hydrogen peroxide in environmental samples to the measurement of enzymes, enzyme substrates and enzyme inhibitors by means of coupled enzymatic reactions, the evaluation of reactive oxygen species production in cells and the assessment of the antioxidant activity of clinical and food samples. The second part of the Chapter is devoted to analytical bioluminescence, especially to ATP-related assays based on the firefly luciferase reaction. The central role of ATP in all living cells makes it possible to detect bacterial or other living cells, which is useful for example for rapid microbiology and hygiene monitoring, and to monitor a wide range of enzymatic reactions, thus allowing the development of diagnostic assays for enzymes and metabolites. Analytical applications of other luciferases, such as bacterial luciferase, are also briefly reported.