We report here the development of coreactant-based electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) as a surface-confined microscopy to image single cells and their membrane proteins. Labeling the entire cell membrane allows one to demonstrate that, by contrast with fluorescence, ECL emission is only detected from fluorophores located in the immediate vicinity of the electrode surface (i.e., 1-2 μm). Then, to present the potential diagnostic applications of our approach, we selected carbon nanotubes (CNT)-based inkjet-printed disposable electrodes for the direct ECL imaging of a labeled plasma receptor overexpressed on tumor cells. The ECL fluorophore was linked to an antibody and enabled to localize the ECL generation on the cancer cell membrane in close proximity to the electrode surface. Such a result is intrinsically associated with the unique ECL mechanism and is rationalized by considering the limited lifetimes of the electrogenerated coreactant radicals. The electrochemical stimulus used for luminescence generation does not suffer from background signals, such as the typical autofluorescence of biological samples. The presented surface-confined ECL microscopy should find promising applications in ultrasensitive single cell imaging assays.

We describe a method to confine electrochemiluminescence (ECL) at the oil-water interface of emulsion droplets that are stabilized by luminophore-grafted microgels. These hydrogel nanoparticles incorporating covalently bound Ru(bpy) as the luminophore are irreversibly adsorbed at the interface of micrometric oil droplets dispersed in a continuous aqueous phase. We study the electrochemical and ECL properties of this multiscale system, composed of a collection of droplets in close contact in the presence of two types of model coreactants. ECL emission is observed upon oxidation of the coreactant and of the luminophore. ECL imaging confirms that light is emitted at the surface of oil droplets. Interestingly, light emission is observed more than 100 μm far from the electrode. It is possibly due to the interconnection between redox-active microgels, making an entangled two-dimensional network at the dodecane-water interface and/or to some optical effects related to the light propagation and refraction at different interfaces in this multiphasic system. Confining ECL in such an inhomogeneous medium should find promising applications in the study of compartmentalized systems, interfacial phenomena, sensors, and analysis of single oil droplets.