[Free radicals and natural or synthetic chemiluminescent systems]

Studies of chemical mechanisms involved in the reactivity of natural or synthetic chimioluminescent compounds show that chimioluminescent phenomena result always from redox reactions associated with energy transfers and often with electron transfers. Therefore, analytical methods based on chimioluminescence are very well adapted to detect and evaluate the free radicals: reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide and non oxygenated radicals, which are generated in biological systems.