Patent ID: 7163796

Claim:
A process for detecting the presence or quantity of enzymatic activity of interest in a sample, said process comprising the steps of: (a) providing: (i) said sample suspected of containing enzymatic activity; (ii) a chemiluminescent reagent having the structure: wherein Q comprises a cycloalkyl or polycycloalkyl group attached covalently to the 4-membered ring portion of said dioxetane above directly or indirectly through a linkage group; wherein Z comprises hydrogen, alkyl, aryl, aralkyl, alkaryl, heteroalkyl, heteroaryl, cycloalkyl or cycloheteroalkyl; and wherein R 1 and R 2 comprise chemical moieties attached to different sites of a cyclic ring attached to said dioxetane, and wherein R 1 is enzymatically converted into R1* which comprises a chemical reactive group G 1 , and wherein R 2 is attached to said cyclic ring through an oxygen atom and comprises a chemical reactive group G 2 which reacts with said G 1 to convert said dioxetane to an unstable light-emitting dioxetane form; (ii) reagents and buffers for carrying out chemiluminescent reactions; (b) forming a mixture of: (1) (i), (ii) and (iii); or (2) (ii) and (iii) and contacting said mixture of (ii) and (iii) with (i); (c) enzymatically converting the chemiluminescent reagent of (a)(ii) into an unstable light-emitting dioxetane form; and (d) measuring the quantity of light generated by said enzymatic conversion in step (c).