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Preparation of electrochemical sensor based on glassy carbon electrode and its specificity and sensitivity for directional detection of antibiotic resistance genes spreading in the water environment

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Abstract

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria/resistance genes (ARB/ARGs) have been paid much attention due to the environmental risks they might bring. They were demonstrated to be widespread in surface water and wastewater. Determining the concentrations of ARGs is the first step to evaluate the degree of pollution. In this study, electrochemical detection technology was studied due to its advantages of low cost, fast response, and satisfactory selectivity. Additionally, the electrochemical sensor technology was used to determine the concentration of a ubiquitous ARG (ampicillin gene blaTEM) in the water environment. A kind of electrochemical sensor was prepared on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) curves indicated that the single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) probe can be successfully immobilized on the surface of the GCE. In addition, the performance of hybridization between the ssDNA probe and the target DNA at diverse temperatures was compared, of which 35 °C was the optimum. Moreover, the change of charge transfer resistance (ΔRct) for the GCE sensor hybridizing with complementary DNA was much higher than that of DNA with the mismatched base, which indicated that the electrochemical sensor prepared in this study was specific. The sensitivity of the sensor was also proved by the strong correlation between the concentrations of ARGs and ΔRct (with the correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9905). All in all, this study is meaningful for the comprehend on the detection of ARGs through the electrochemical method.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42077213), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (No. 20ZR1406100), and the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2020YFC1806302).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Chunli Wan, Aoxuan Qu & Xiang Liu

  2. Shanghai Chengtou Environmental Ecological Restoration Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, 200232, China

    Aoxuan Qu

  3. Research Center of Environmental Pollution Control Technology, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Liyan Deng & Changyong Wu

Authors
  1. Chunli Wan
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  2. Aoxuan Qu
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  3. Liyan Deng
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  4. Xiang Liu
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  5. Changyong Wu
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Contributions

Changyong Wu designed investigation and corrected the manuscript, Aoxuan Qu and Liyan Deng collected and analyzed documents; Chunli Wan and Xiang Liu wrote the original manuscript with contributions from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Changyong Wu.

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Wan, C., Qu, A., Deng, L. et al. Preparation of electrochemical sensor based on glassy carbon electrode and its specificity and sensitivity for directional detection of antibiotic resistance genes spreading in the water environment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 7904–7913 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22787-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22787-2

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