Abstract
A sensitive, specific and rapid colorimetric aptasensor for the determination of the plasticizer bisphenol A (BPA) was developed. It is based on the use of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that are positively charged due to the modification with cysteamine which is cationic at near-neutral pH values. If aptamers are added to such AuNPs, aggregation occurs due to electrostatic interactions between the negatively-charged aptamers and the positively-charged AuNPs. This results in a color change of the AuNPs from red to blue. If a sample containing BPA is added to the anti-BPA aptamers, the anti-BPA aptamers undergo folding via an induced-fit binding mechanism. This is accompanied by a conformational change, which prevents the aptamer-induced aggregation and color change of AuNPs. The effect was exploited to design a colorimetric assay for BPA. Under optimum conditions, the absorbance ratio of A 527/A 680 is linearly proportional to the BPA concentration in the range from 35 to 140 ng∙mL−1, with a detection limit of 0.11 ng∙mL−1. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of BPA in spiked tap water and gave recoveries between 91 and 106 %. Data were in full accordance with results obtained from HPLC. This assay is selective, easily performed, and in our perception represents a promising alternative to existing methods for rapid quantification of BPA.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Salian S, Doshi T, Vanage G (2011) Perinatal exposure of rats to bisphenol A affects fertility of male offspring-An overview. Reprod Toxicol 359–362
Kawaguchi M, Inoue K, Yoshimura M, Ito R, Sakui N, Okanouchi N, Nakazawa H (2004) Determination of bisphenol A in river water and body fluid samples by stir bar sorptive extraction with in situ derivatization and thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. J Chromatogr B 805:41–48
Inoue K, Kawaguchi M, Funakoshi Y, Nakazawa H (2003) Size-exclusion flow extraction of bisphenol A in human urine for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. J Chromatogr B 798:17–23
Tan XW, Song YX, Wei RP, Yi GY (2012) Determination of trace bisphenol A in water using three-phase hollow fiber liquid-phase microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography. Chin J Anal Chem 40:1409–1414
Wang FG, Yang JQ, Wu KB (2009) Mesoporous silica-based electrochemical sensor for sensitive determination of environmental hormone bisphenol A. Anal Chim Acta 638:23–28
Yin HS, Cui L, Chen QP, Shi WJ, Ai SY, Zhu LS, Lu LN (2011) Amperometric determination of bisphenol A in milk using PAMAM-Fe3O4 modified glassy carbon electrode. Food Chem 125:1097–1103
Kuruto-Niwa R, Tateoka Y, Usuki Y, Nozawa R (2007) Measurement of bisphenol A concentrations in human colostrums. Chemosphere 66:1160–1164
Ellington AD, Szostak JW (1990) In vitro selection of RNA molecules that bind specific ligands. Nature 346:818–822
Tuerk C, Gold L (1990) Systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment: RNA ligands to bacteriophage T4 DNA polymerase. Science 249:505–510
Liu CW, Huang CC, Chang HT (2009) Highly selective DNA-based sensor for lead(II) and mercury(II) ions. Anal Chem 81:2383–2387
Feng CJ, Dai S, Wang L (2014) Optical aptasensors for quantitative detection of small biomolecules: a review. Biosens Bioelectron 59:64–74
Deng B, Lin YW, Wang C, Li F, Wang ZX, Zhang HQ, Li XF, Le XC (2014) Aptamer binding assays for proteins: the thrombin example-A review. Anal Chim Acta 837:1–15
Torres-Chavolla E, Alocilja EC (2009) Aptasensors for detection of microbial and viral pathogens. Biosens Bioelectron 24:3175–3182
Phillips JA, Lopez-Colon D, Zhu Z, Xu Y, Tan WH (2008) Applications of aptamers in cancer cell biology. Anal Chim Acta 621:101–108
Cho EJ, Lee JW, Ellington AD (2009) Applications of aptamers as sensors. Annu Rev Anal Chem 2:241–264
Chen XJ, Wang YZ, Zhang YY, Chen ZH, Liu Y, Li ZL, Li JH (2014) Sensitive electrochemical aptamer biosensor for dynamic cell surface N‑Glycan evaluation featuring multivalent recognition and signal amplification on a dendrimer−graphene electrode interface. Anal Chem 86:4278–4286
Liu CW, Hsieh YT, Huang CC, Lin ZH, Chang HT (2008) Detection of mercury(II) based on Hg2+-DNA complexes inducing the aggregation of gold nanoparticles. Chem Commun 2242–2244
Mei ZL, Chu HQ, Chen W, Xue F, Liu J, Xu HN, Zhang R, Zheng L (2013) Ultrasensitive one-step rapid visual detection of bisphenol A in water samples by label-free aptasensor. Biosens Bioelectron 39:26–30
Zheng Y, Wang Y, Yang XR (2011) Aptamer-based colorimetric biosensing of dopamine using unmodified gold nanoparticles. Sens Actuators B 156:95–99
Wei H, Li BL, Li J, Wang EK, Dong SJ (2007) Simple and sensitive aptamer-based colorimetric sensing of protein using unmodified gold nanoparticle probes. Chem Commun 36:3735–3737
Cao R, Li BX (2011) A simple and sensitive method for visual detection of heparin using positively-charged gold nanoparticles as colorimetric probes. Chem Commun 47:2865–2867
Cao R, Li BX, Zhang YF, Zhang ZN (2011) Naked-eye sensitive detection of nuclease activity using positively-charged gold nanoparticles as colorimetric probes. Chem Commun 47:12301–12303
Ren S, Li BX, Zhang L (2013) Visual detection of hexokinase activity and inhibition with positively charged gold nanoparticles as colorimetric probes. Analyst 138:3142–3145
Ragavan KV, Selvakumar LS, Thakur MS (2013) Functionalized aptamers as nano-bioprobes for ultrasensitive detection of bisphenol-A. Chem Commun 49:5960–5962
Jo M, Ahn JY, Lee J, Lee S, Hong SW, Yoo JW, Kang J, Dua P, Lee DK, Hong S (2011) Development of single-stranded DNA aptamers for specific bisphenol A detection. Oligonucleotides 21:85–91
Niidome T, Nakashima K, Takahashi H, Niidome Y (2004) Preparation of primary amine-modified gold nanoparticles and their transfection ability into cultivated cells. Chem Commun 17:1978–1979
Saha K, Agasti SS, Kim C, Li X, Rotello VM (2012) Gold nanoparticles in chemical and biological sensing. Chem Rev 112:2739–2779
Chang YM, Chen CKM, Hou MH (2012) Conformational changes in DNA upon ligand binding monitored by circular dichroism. Int J Mol Sci 13:3394–3413
Zhang ZL, Huang WM, Tang JL, Wang EK, Dong SJ (2002) Conformational transition of DNA induced by cationic lipid vesicle in acidic solution: spectroscopy investigation. Biophys Chem 97:7–16
Hermann T, Patel DJ (2000) Adaptive recognition by nucleic acid aptamers. Science 287:820–825
Kim YJ, Kim YS, Niazi JH, Gu MB (2010) Electrochemical aptasensor for tetracycline detection. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 33:31–37
Xue F, Wu JJ, Chu HQ, Mei ZL, Ye YK, Liu J, Zhang R, Peng CF, Zheng L, Chen W (2013) Electrochemical aptasensor for the determination of bisphenol A in drinking water. Microchim Acta 180:109–115
Mei ZL, Deng Y, Chu HQ, Xue F, Zhong YH, Wu JJ, Yang H, Wang ZC, Zheng L, Chen W (2013) Immunochromatographic lateral flow strip for on-site detection of bisphenol A. Microchim Acta 180:279–285
Du LY, Zhang CY, Wang LJ, Liu GF, Zhang YF, Wang SH (2015) Ultrasensitive time-resolved microplate fluorescence immunoassay for bisphenol A using a system composed on gold nanoparticles and a europium(III)-labeled streptavidin tracer. Microchim Acta 182:539–545
Zhu YY, Cai YL, Xu LG, Zheng LX, Wang LM, Qi B, Xu CL (2015) Building an aptamer/graphene oxide FRET biosensor for one-step detection of bisphenol A. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 7:7492–7496
Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province (No. 201215024), the Excellent Youth Talent Cultivation Project of Heping Campus of Jilin University, and the Graduate Student Innovation Research Project of Jilin University (No. 2014071).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Jingyue Xu and Ying Li contributed equally to this work.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOC 1135 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xu, J., Li, Y., Bie, J. et al. Colorimetric method for determination of bisphenol A based on aptamer-mediated aggregation of positively charged gold nanoparticles. Microchim Acta 182, 2131–2138 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-015-1547-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-015-1547-z