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High-sensitive ferrocene labeled aptasensor for the detection of Mucin 1 by tuning the sequence constitution of complementary probe

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Abstract

A strand displacement-based “signal-off” electrochemical aptasensor is reported for the detection of Mucin 1 (MUC 1) based on a high original signal. Different from the conventional “signal-off” electrochemical biosensors where electrochemical substances are dispersed in electrolyte solution, here the current signal was generated by the complementary probe (CP) associated with ferrocene (Fc) labeled aptamer (Apt.-Fc). Because Apt.-Fc and MUC 1 have a higher affinity, Apt.-Fc dissociates from CP in the presence of MUC 1, resulting in a reduction of detection current signal generated by oxidation of labeled Fc. In this system, high detection signal is necessary to improve the sensor’s performance. For this aim, a strategy is proposed for changing the modalities of electron transport and the quantity of Apt.-Fc introduced by simply tuning the sequence constitution of CP. As expected, a high detection current signal was obtained after selecting CP(Apt.-Fc)-TTT as the optimal CP. The aptasensor was then employed to detect MUC 1, and satisfactory detection results with a low detection limit (LOD) of 0.087 pM (S/N = 3), good specificity, good stability, and feasibility of detection of MUC 1 in artificial serum (recovery of 92–101%, RSD of 1.36–5.23%) were obtained.

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Funding

The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University, Najran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding under the Research Collaboration funding program grant no. NU/RC/SERC/11/14. This research was funded by Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2019MB066) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21802052).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, China

    Chengxian Zhao, Meishan Pei, Xueying Yang, Xiangyun Mi & Luyan Wang

  2. Institute of Surface Analysis and Chemical Biology, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, China

    Wenjuan Guo & Zhe Ren

  3. Department of Chemistry, College of Science and Arts, Najran University, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Ahmad Umar & Ahmed A. Ibrahim

  4. Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Ahmad Umar, Hassan Algadi & Ahmed A. Ibrahim

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Ahmad Umar

  6. Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Najran University, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Hassan Algadi

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  1. Chengxian Zhao
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Zhao, C., Guo, W., Umar, A. et al. High-sensitive ferrocene labeled aptasensor for the detection of Mucin 1 by tuning the sequence constitution of complementary probe. Microchim Acta 189, 332 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-022-05424-0

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