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Rosette-shaped graphitic carbon nitride acts as a peroxidase mimic in a wide pH range for fluorescence-based determination of glucose with glucose oxidase

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Abstract

Rosette-shaped graphitic carbon nitride (rosette-GCN) is described as a promising alternative to natural peroxidase for its application to fluorescence-based glucose assays. Rosette-GCN was synthesized via a rapid reaction between melamine and cyanuric acid for 10 min at 35 °C, followed by thermal calcination for 4 h. Importantly, rosette-GCN possesses a peroxidase-like activity, producing intense fluorescence from the oxidation of Amplex UltraRed in the presence of H2O2 over a broad pH-range of, including neutral pH; the peroxidase activity of rosette-GCN was ~ 10-fold higher than that of conventional bulk-GCN. This enhancement of peroxidase activity is presumed to occur because rosette-GCN has a significantly larger surface area and higher porosity while preserving its unique graphitic structure. Based on the high peroxidase activity of rosette-GCN along with the catalytic action of glucose oxidase (GOx), glucose was reliably determined down to 1.2 μM with a dynamic linear concentration range of 5.0 to 275.0 μM under neutral pH conditions. Practical utility of this strategy was also successfully demonstrated by determining the glucose levels in serum samples. This work highlights the advantages of GCNs synthesized via rapid methods but with unique structures for the preparation of enzyme-mimicking catalysts, thus extending their applications to the diagnostics field and other biotechnological fields.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the Center for Research and Development of the Police Science and Technology grant funded by the Korea National Police Agency (KNPA) (PA-K000001-2019-401) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF- 2019R1A2C1087459)). This study was also supported by the financial support from the R&D Convergence Program (CAP-15-02-KBSI) of NST (National Research Council of Science & Technology) of Korea and Inha University WCSL research grant.

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  1. Nam Su Heo and Han Pill Song contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Engineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Nam-gu, Incheon, 22212, South Korea

    Nam Su Heo & Yun Suk Huh

  2. Department of BioNano Technology, Gachon University, 1342 Seongnamdae-ro, Sujeong-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi, 13120, South Korea

    Han Pill Song & Moon Il Kim

  3. Research Center for Materials Analysis, Korea Basic Science Institute, Daejeon, 34133, South Korea

    Nam Su Heo, Sang Moon Lee & Hae Jin Kim

  4. Reliability Assessment Center for Chemical Materials, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), 141 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-600, South Korea

    Hye-Jin Cho

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  1. Nam Su Heo
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Correspondence to Yun Suk Huh or Moon Il Kim.

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Heo, N.S., Song, H.P., Lee, S.M. et al. Rosette-shaped graphitic carbon nitride acts as a peroxidase mimic in a wide pH range for fluorescence-based determination of glucose with glucose oxidase. Microchim Acta 187, 286 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-020-04249-z

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