Repurposing the Sanger Reagent for Optical Sensing of the Concentration and Enantiomeric Ratio of Chiral Amines, Amino Alcohols, and Amino Acids

The well-known, readily available Sanger reagent is used for quantitative chiroptical sensing of the amount and enantiomeric composition of amines, amino alcohols, and amino acids. A practical assay that is fast, adaptable to a variety of solvents, and only requires mixing of the sample and probe in the presence of triethylamine prior to the CD and UV measurements is introduced. The analyte tagging generates characteristic CD and UV signals at 405 and 345 nm, respectively, which allow accurate concentration and er analysis without any workup or tedious sample preparation.