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Dual-target electrochemical DNA sensor for detection of Pb2+ and Hg2+ simultaneously by exonuclease I–assisted recycling signal amplification

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Abstract

With the development of exonuclease, the exonuclease has been used to construct a variety of aptasensor and to realize the signal amplification. Among them, based on silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) and exonuclease I (Exo I)-assisted cycle signal amplification strategy, we designed a novel high-sensitivity dual-target electrochemical biosensor to detect Pb2+ or Hg2+ in water. In the presence of Hg2+, the Hg2+ was fixed to the aptamer chain by thymine-Hg2+-thymine (T-Hg2+-T), resulting in the decrease of signal. When Pb2+ was present, DNA single strand S2 dissociated and was bound to Pb2+, which automatically triggered Exo I to selectively cut the single chain from the recognition site to achieve the cyclic amplification of the electrochemical signal. The interaction between aptamer and Exo I was investigated by gel electrophoresis. Under the optimum conditions in the scan range -0.20 to 0.60 V, the biosensor had high sensitivity with a linear range of 100 pg/L to 10.0 mg/L, Pb2+ or Hg2+, and the detection limits were 17.0 pg/L (R2 = 0.993) and 12.0 pg/L (R2 = 0.993), respectively. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of the sensor was 0.5–2.6%, and the recovery of spiked standard solutions was between 98.3 and 110%. The cycle amplification strategy supported by this enzyme has promising applications in detection of the two metal ions in various fields.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided all the funds.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2018BC055) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.32161133008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, No. 266 Xincun Xilu, Zibo, 255000, China

    Yue Wang, Hongguo Zhai, Jiaqi Yin, Qi Guo, Yuhao Zhang, Qingqing Yang, Falan Li, Xia Sun, Yemin Guo & Yanyan Zhang

  2. Shandong Province Engineering Research Center of Vegetable Safety and Quality Traceability, No. 266 Xincun Xilu, Zibo, 255000, China

    Yue Wang, Hongguo Zhai, Jiaqi Yin, Qi Guo, Yuhao Zhang, Qingqing Yang, Falan Li, Xia Sun, Yemin Guo & Yanyan Zhang

  3. Zibo City Key Laboratory of Agricultural Product Safety Traceability, No. 266 Xincun Xilu, Zibo, 255000, China

    Yue Wang, Hongguo Zhai, Jiaqi Yin, Qi Guo, Yuhao Zhang, Qingqing Yang, Falan Li, Xia Sun, Yemin Guo & Yanyan Zhang

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  1. Yue Wang
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Contributions

Yue Wang: conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft.

Hongguo Zhai: methodology, writing—review & editing.

Jiaqi Yin: investigation, writing—review & editing.

Qi Guo: date curation.

Yuhao Zhang: date curation.

Qingqing Yang: validation, investigation.

Falan Li: Resources, writing—review & editing.

Xia Sun: formal analysis.

Yemin Guo: formal analysis.

Yanyan Zhang: supervision, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Yanyan Zhang.

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Wang, Y., Zhai, H., Yin, J. et al. Dual-target electrochemical DNA sensor for detection of Pb2+ and Hg2+ simultaneously by exonuclease I–assisted recycling signal amplification. Microchim Acta 189, 460 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-022-05569-y

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