What is "fluorescamine"

n. A spiro compound that reacts with primary amines to form highly fluorescent products.

Fluorescamine is a spiro compound that is not fluorescent itself, but reacts with primary amines to form highly fluorescent products. It hence has been used as a reagent for the detection of amines and peptides. 1-100 µg of protein and down 10pg protein can be detected. This method is found to suffer of high blanks resulting of high rate of hydrolysis due to used excess concentration. Alternative methods are based on ortho-Phthalaldehyde (OPA), Ellman's reagent (DTNB) and epicocconone.