Patent ID: 6979545

Claim:
A method for screening chemical compounds for electrophilic properties comprising the steps of: (a) providing an assay device having one or more reaction vessels; (b) adding a predetermined amount of separate chemical compounds for screening to each reaction vessel; (c) adding a predetermined amount of a surrogate chemical marker to each reaction vessel and allowing said separate chemical compounds and surrogate chemical marker to incubate for a period of time; (d) adding a reactive chemical to each reaction vessel which is capable of reacting with the surrogate chemical marker such that the amount of the surrogate chemical marker that has not reacted with the separate chemical compounds after step (c) can be quantitatively or qualitatively measured; and (e) quantitatively or qualitatively measuring the amount of the surrogate chemical marker that has not reacted with the separate chemical compounds after step (c), wherein the amount of the surrogate chemical marker measured in step (e) that is less than the amount of surrogate chemical marker added in step (c) indicates that the chemical compound is electrophilic wherein said surrogate chemical marker comprises gamma-glutamylcysteineglycine (GSH), n-acetyl cysteine, cysteine, beta-mercaptoethanol or any compound containing a free sulfydryl group, and wherein said reactive chemical in step (d) comprises mercury orange, fluorescein-5-maleimide, coumarin maleimide, fluorophores or compounds capable of reacting with sulthydryl groups.