Graphene Signal Amplification for Sensitive and Real-Time Fluorescence Anisotropy Detection of Small Molecules

Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2013 papers

Abstract

Fluorescence anisotropy (FA) is a reliable, sensitive, and robust assay approach for determination of many biological targets. However, it is generally not applicable for the assay of small molecules because their molecular masses are relatively too small to produce observable FA value changes. To address this issue, we report herein the development of a FA signal amplification strategy by employing graphene oxide (GO) as the signal amplifier. Because of the extraordinarily larger volume of GO, the fluorophore exhibits very high polarization when bound to GO. Conversely, low polarization is observed when the fluorophore is dissociated from the GO. As proof-of-principle, the approach was applied to FA detection of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) with a fluorescent aptamer. The aptamer exhibits very high polarization when bound to GO, while the FA is greatly reduced when the aptamer complexes with ATP, which exhibits a maximum signal change of 0.316 and a low detection limit of 100 nM ATP in buffer solution. Successful application of this strategy has been demonstrated that it can be constructed either in a "signal-off" or in a "signal-on" detection scheme. Moreover, because FA is less affected by environmental interferences, FA measurements could be conveniently used to directly detect as low as 1.0 μM adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in human serum. The universality of the approach could be achieved to detect an array of biological analytes when complemented with the use of functional DNA structures.

Related Papers

• → Electrochemistry of graphene, graphene oxide and other graphenoids: Review(2013)266 cited
• → Orthotropic friction at the edges and interior of graphene and graphene fluoride and frictional anisotropy of graphene at the nanoscale(2021)1 cited
• A natural advantage? Using mined graphite to make graphene(2013)
• Synthesis and Characterisation of Graphene Single Sheets(2012)
• Unique synthesis of graphene-based materials for clean energy and biological sensing applications(2012)