US 5,238,808 AGranted

Luminescent metal chelate labels and means for detection

AssigneeIgen, Inc.

InventorsAllen J. Bard, George M. Whitesides

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Abstract

A chemical moiety is disclosed which comprises a chemical, biochemical, or biological substance attached to one or more electrochemiluminescent organometallic compounds. In a preferred embodiment of the invention the substance is attached to one or more ruthenium-containing or osmium-containing luminescent organometallic compounds. Methods are disclosed for detecting very small amounts of the chemical moiety using chemiluminescent, electrochemiluminescent, and photoluminescent means. Compounds are disclosed which are useful for labelling substances of interest with ruthenium-containing and osmium-containing labels or other electrochemiluminescent labels. These labelled substances are useful in methods provided for detecting and quantifying analytes of interest in binding assays and competitive binding assays. The labelled substances are of particular use in homogeneous binding assays. These methods form the bases for systems designed to enable the rapid, efficient, and sensitive determination of a broad array of chemical, biochemical, and biological materials of interest.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A chemical moiety having the formula ##STR4## wherein:

M is ruthenium or osmium;
P, L.sup.1, and L.sup.2 each is a bidentate aromatic heterocyclic nitrogen-containing ligand of M selected from the group consisting of bipyridyl, substituted bipyridyl, bipyrazyl, substituted bipyrazyl, phenanthrolyl and substituted phenanthrolyl, wherein each of said substituted groups is substituted by an alkyl, aryl, aralkyl, carboxylate, carboxaldehyde, carboxamide, cyano, amino, hydroxycarbonyl, hydroxyamino, aminocarbonyl, amidine, guanidinium, ureide, sulfur-containing group, phrophorus-containing group, or the carboxylate ester of N-hydroxysuccinimide, each of said ligands being the same or not the same as each other ligand;
B is a biological substance, a synthetic substance which is capable of competing with a biological substance in a competitive binding reaction with a complementary material, or a non-biological polymer;
m=1;
each of n and o is 1;
t is an integer equal to or greater than 1;
u is 1;
and
said link is one or more amide or amine linkages, each said amide or amine linkage covalently bonding B with one of P, L.sup.1 and L.sup.2 ;
P, L.sup.1, L.sup.2, and B being of such composition and number that the chemical moiety is capable of being induced to electrochemiluminescence, and the total number of bonds to M provided by the ligands of M equals the coordination number of M.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.