An attomolar-level electrochemical DNA biosensor based on target-triggered and entropy-driven catalytic amplification integrated with AuNPs@ZIF-8 nanocomposites for oral cancer overexpressed 1 detection

Abstract

It is of great interest and necessity to develop a nonenzymatic, simple but highly sensitive biosensor for early diagnosis of oral cancer. Present here is an electrochemical DNA biosensor which integrates a target-triggered, entropy-driven, nonenzymatic and isothermal amplification strategy with gold nanoparticles/zeolitic imidazolate frameworks-8 (AuNPs@ZIF-8) nanocomposites for ultra-sensitive detection of oral cancer-related biomarker (ORAOV 1) in saliva. It is worth noting that the nuclease is not involved in the whole reaction process, which is simple and flexible in design only using a series of linear single-stranded DNA, avoiding undesired secondary structure interference. Meanwhile, due to the synergistic effect of AuNPs and ZIF-8, AuNPs@ZIF-8 nanocomposites display high stability, excellent electrical conductivity and exceptional electrocatalytic activity, further enhancing the electrochemical signal and avoiding labeling electrochemical signal probes. Experimental results demonstrate that this electrochemical DNA biosensor has a wide linear range (1 fM ∼1 nM), a low limit of detection (163 aM), excellent specificity, superior reproducibility and stability to ORAOV 1. More importantly, the actual application of the newly developed electrochemical biosensor is exemplified in human saliva with satisfactory recoveries. Therefore, the newly developed electrochemical biosensor has a broad application prospect in the nondestructive and early screening of oral cancer.

Keywords: AuNPs@ZIF-8 nanocomposites; Electrochemical DNA biosensor; Entropy-driven catalytic (EDC) reaction; Nonenzymatic signal amplification; Oral cancer overexpressed 1.