Fluorescamine is nonfluorescent but readily reacts with primary aliphatic amines, including those in peptides and proteins, to yield a blue-green fluorescent adduct that can be excited by UV light. The amine adduct has absorption maximum at 385 nm and fluorescence maximum at 486 nm. Fluorescamine is widely used to detect amino compounds, including amino acids, peptides and proteins. It is a popular fluorogenic reagent for determining protein concentrations in solutions and on gels. Fluorescamine is also used to analyze low molecular weight amines by TLC, HPLC and capillary electrophoresis.
Storage
-20°C desiccated and protected from light
References
Bantan-Polak T, et al. (2001). A comparison of fluorescamine and naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde fluorogenic reagents for microplate-based detection of amino acids. Anal Biochem 297, 128-36; Buranda T, et al. (2001) Detection of epitope-tagged proteins in flow cytometry: fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based assays on beads with femtomole resolution. Anal Biochem 298, 151-162.
