Impedimetric biotin—Immunosensor with excellent analytical performance for real sample analysis

Biotin Homeostasis and Human Disorders: Recent Findings and Perspectives

Biotin (vitamin B7, or vitamin H) is a water-soluble B-vitamin that functions as a cofactor for carboxylases, i.e., enzymes involved in the cellular metabolism of fatty acids and amino acids and in gluconeogenesis; moreover, as reported, biotin may be involved in gene regulation. Biotin is not synthesized by human cells, but it is found in food and is also produced by intestinal bacteria. Biotin status/homeostasis in human individuals depends on several factors, including efficiency/deficiency of the enzymes involved in biotin recycling within the human organism (biotinidase, holocarboxylase synthetase), and/or effectiveness of intestinal uptake, which is mainly accomplished through the sodium-dependent multivitamin transporter. In the last years, administration of biotin at high/"pharmacological" doses has been proposed to treat specific defects/deficiencies and human disorders, exhibiting mainly neurological and/or dermatological symptoms and including biotinidase deficiency, holocarboxylase synthetase deficiency, and biotin-thiamine-responsive basal ganglia disease. On the other hand, according to warnings of the Food and Drug Administration, USA, high biotin levels can affect clinical biotin-(strept)avidin assays and thus lead to false results during quantification of critical biomarkers. In this review article, recent findings/advancements that may offer new insight in the abovementioned research fields concerning biotin will be presented and briefly discussed.

Electrochemical sensor for ultrasensitive sensing of biotin based on heme conjugated with gold nanoparticles and its electrooxidation mechanism

We report the fabrication of a facile sensor using heme conjugated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in situ on a glass carbon electrode (GCE) for the ultrasensitive determination of biotin without antibody or streptavidin. The use of heme and AuNPs as dual amplifiers allows a very broad detection range from 0.0050 to 50.0000 μmol·L-1 and a very low detection limit of 0.0016 μmol·L-1. The mechanistic aspects were elucidated using electrochemical analyses and frontier orbital calculations showing that the electrooxidation of biotin involves a one-electron and a one-proton transfer, generating biotin sulfoxide. The heme/AuNPs/GCE sensor exhibited excellent selectivity, reproducibility and stability, indicating high robustness. The recovery was between 97.20 and 105.70% with RSD less than 8.71%, suggesting good practicability. Our studies demonstrate that this approach can be used to detect and quantify biotin in a range of foods, including milk, infant formula, flour, orange juice, mango juice, egg white and egg yolk. Furthermore, all measurements do not require any intricate preparation or pre-treatment of the foods, thus representing a great potential for point-of-care testing.

Application of HRP-streptavidin bionanoparticles for potentiometric biotin determination

Biotin is widely used in infant formula to prevent biotin deficiency of newborn babies and in beauty products as nutritional supplements for coenzymatic functions and having strong nails, shiny hair, and skin over the last few years. There is a need for the development of a fast, simple and reusable assay method to perform biotin determination at very low concentrations. Biotin determination has achieved with a prepared potentiometric biotin sensor that has a very wide concentration range (10-15M-10-7M) and a lower detection limit (0.3 10-15M) with a very good regression coefficient (0.9925). A quick response (7 min), good accuracy (recovery 100.4-103.7%), reproducible, reusable (10 times), and long-term stability (3 months) have been obtained using the prepared potentiometric sensor. The obtained results have proved that the prepared potentiometric sensor can be used for biotin determination in real samples.

Modular Imaging Scaffold for Single-Particle Electron Microscopy

Technological breakthroughs in electron microscopy (EM) have made it possible to solve structures of biological macromolecular complexes and to raise novel challenges, specifically related to sample preparation and heterogeneous macromolecular assemblies such as DNA-protein, protein-protein, and membrane protein assemblies. Here, we built a V-shaped DNA origami as a scaffolding molecular system to template proteins at user-defined positions in space. This template positions macromolecular assemblies of various sizes, juxtaposes combinations of biomolecules into complex arrangements, isolates biomolecules in their active state, and stabilizes membrane proteins in solution. In addition, the design can be engineered to tune DNA mechanical properties by exerting a controlled piconewton (pN) force on the molecular system and thus adapted to characterize mechanosensitive proteins. The binding site can also be specifically customized to accommodate the protein of interest, either interacting spontaneously with DNA or through directed chemical conjugation, increasing the range of potential targets for single-particle EM investigation. We assessed the applicability for five different proteins. Finally, as a proof of principle, we used RNAP protein to validate the approach and to explore the compatibility of the template with cryo-EM sample preparation.