A sensitive and selective electroanalysis strategy for histidine using the wettable well electrodes modified with graphene quantum dot-scaffolded melamine and copper nanocomposites

A Novel Poly(cytosine)-Based Electrochemical Biosensor for Sensitive and Selective Determination of Guanine in Biological Samples

The novel poly(cytosine)-modified glassy carbon electrode-based electrochemical sensor was fabricated potentiodynamically for the detection of Guanine (G) in clinical and biological samples. The surface of the electrode was successfully activated by electropolymerization, and about a 7.5-fold current improvement due to modification was achieved. From the analysis of the dependence of peak current and peak potential on a scan rate, a higher R 2 for the peak current on the square root of scan rate (R 2 = 0.999) than the dependence of peak current on scan rate (R 2 = 0.982) indicated that the oxidation of G at poly(cytosine)/GCE was predominantly diffusion controlled. The oxidative peak response of the electrode revealed a high linear range of G concentration (0.1-200 μM) under optimized conditions. The detection limit and limit of quantification were 6.10 and 20.13 nM, respectively, associated with the %RSD of under 1%. The validation of the developed electrochemical sensor for the determination of G was investigated by analyzing human urine DNA and serum samples with spike recovery results in the range of 98.20-103.70% with the interferent recovery percentage in the range of 97.86-103.10% containing 50-300% of potential interferents. The newly designed sensor demonstrated the highest level of performance for the G detection in real samples.

Electrochemical Amino Acid Sensing: A Review on Challenges and Achievements

The rapid growth of research in electrochemistry in the last decade has resulted in a significant advancement in exploiting electrochemical strategies for assessing biological substances. Among these, amino acids are of utmost interest due to their key role in human health. Indeed, an unbalanced amino acid level is the origin of several metabolic and genetic diseases, which has led to a great need for effective and reliable evaluation methods. This review is an effort to summarize and present both challenges and achievements in electrochemical amino acid sensing from the last decade (from 2010 onwards) to show where limitations and advantages stem from. In this review, we place special emphasis on five well-known electroactive amino acids, namely cysteine, tyrosine, tryptophan, methionine and histidine. The recent research and achievements in this area and significant performance metrics of the proposed electrochemical sensors, including the limit of detection, sensitivity, stability, linear dynamic range(s) and applicability in real sample analysis, are summarized and presented in separate sections. More than 400 recent scientific studies were included in this review to portray a rich set of ideas and exemplify the capabilities of the electrochemical strategies to detect these essential biomolecules at trace and even ultra-trace levels. Finally, we discuss, in the last section, the remaining issues and the opportunities to push the boundaries of our knowledge in amino acid electrochemistry even further.

Fabricating a wettable microwells array onto a nitrogen plasma-treated ITO substrate: high-throughput fluorimetric platform for selective sensing of ammonia in blood using polymer-stabilized NH2-MIL-125

A high-throughput and selective fluorimetric platform has been constructed for the analysis of ammonia in blood by using a polymer-stabilized metal-organic framework (MOF) of porous NH2-MIL-125, which was coated onto a wettable microwells array constructed on an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate. It was found that the nitrogen plasma treatment for the ITO substrate could create a super-hydrophilic interface that combined with the hydrophobic pattern yielded a wettable microwells array, enabling the condensation-based enrichment of targets from the sample droplets. Moreover, the NH2-MIL-125 MOF encapsulated using polymers could be firmly coated onto the microwells to act as fluorescent probes for sensing NH3 with enhanced responses. In addition, the use of the polymer polyvinyl pyrrolidone could protect and stabilize the crystals of NH2-MIL-125 probe in aqueous media, revealing the improved hydrophilicity and significantly depressed signal background. The as-developed fluorimetric platform, containing a MOF-coated microwells array, can enable the detection of ammonia in blood, with concentrations ranging linearly from 0.10 to 300 μM. More importantly, this plasma treatment-based fabrication route may hold promise for designing different wettable microwells arrays for the high-throughput detection of multiple targets in the fields of biomedical analysis and environmental monitoring.

Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor for Novel Detection of Histidine Based on the Hg2+ Induced Aggregation of AuNPs Followed by Preconcentration with Chitosan Gel as Solid-phase Biosorbent

This research work aims to propose an extraction method using chitosan as the sorbent and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as the colorimetric sensor for the development of a simple, cost-effective, rapid, sensitive, and selective detection method for histidine. The colorimetric assay is based on the aggregation of AuNPs in the presence of Hg2+ ions and histidine. The state of AuNPs generally changes from dispersion to aggregation. The change in state is accompanied by a corresponding change in color (from red wine to blue). Therefore, the solid phase extraction (SPE) method using chitosan as the sorbent was used to extract the AuNPs to improve the sensitivity of detection. It was found that the extraction by means of a sensor system using chitosan could increase the detection signal for histidine by 10 times. The calibration curve, which is the plot of absorbance ratio (A650/A528) against the concentration of histidine, shows a linear relation in the concentration range of 100 - 800 nM. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) of the method were found to be 99.88 and 107.45 nM, respectively. Good recoveries were also obtained (range: 99.75 - 104.43%) with relative standard deviations (RSDs) below 5.89% in real water samples. Moreover, this method can be used for the selective detection of histidine even in the presence of other amino acids. The proposed method has been successfully used in the determination of histidine in mineral water samples.

Simultaneous voltammetric determination of guanine and adenine using MnO2 nanosheets and ionic liquid-functionalized graphene combined with a permeation-selective polydopamine membrane

Guanine and adenine in blood samples can be detected by using an electrochemical sensor based on the use of manganese dioxide (MnO₂) nanosheets and ionic liquid functionalized graphene (IL-GR) bound to a polydopamine (PDA) membrane. Both guanine and adenine undergo a redox reaction on the surface of the modified electrode. Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry were used to evaluate the electrochemical behavior of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with PDA/MnO₂/IL-GR. The sensor allows for individual as well as simultaneous determination of guanine and adenine. The working voltage of differential pulse voltammetry at which data were acquired to establish the calibration plot: 0.6-1.2 V for guanine, 0.8-1.4 V for adenine, 0.4-1.4 V for mixture of guanine and adenine. A wide detection range (10-300 μM), low detection limits (guanine: 0.25 μM; adenine: 0.15 μM), selectivity and reproducibility are demonstrated. The modified GCE was successfully applied to the analysis of guanine and adenine in spiked fetal bovine serum and mouse whole blood samples. Graphical abstract An electrochemical sensor is presented for the determination of guanine (G) and adenine (A) based on MnO₂ nanosheets, ionic liquid functionalized graphene (IL-graphene) and polydopamine membrane.