A novel potentiometric immunosensor for detection of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) has been developed by means of self-assembly (SA) and opposite-charged adsorption (OCA) techniques to immobilize hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) on a platinum electrode. A cleaned platinum electrode was first pretreated in the presence of 10% HNO3 and 2.5% K2CrO4 solution and held at -1.5 V (vs SCE) for 1 min to make it negatively charged and then immersed in a mixing solution containing hepatitis B surface antibody, colloidal gold (Au), and polyvinyl butyral (PVB). Finally, HBsAb was successfully immobilized onto the surface of the negatively charged platinum electrode modified nanosized gold and PVB sol-gel matrixes. The modified procedure was characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The immobilized hepatitis B surface antibody exhibited direct electrochemical behavior toward hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The performance and factors influencing the performance of the resulting immunosensor were studied in detail. More than 95.7% of the results of the human serum samples obtained by this method were in agreement with those obtained by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). The resulting immunosensor exhibited fast potentiometric response (<3 min) to HBsAg. The detection limit of the immunosensor was 2.3 ng.mL(-1), and the linear range was from 8 to 1280 ng.mL(-1). Moreover, the studied immunosensor exhibited high sensitivity, good reproducibility, and long-term stability (>6 months).
A rapid signal amplification system based on the self-replicating catalyzed hairpin assembly is reported in which two hairpins, H1 and H2, were well-designed in which two split target/trigger DNA and two split G-quadruplex sequences were respectively integrated into H1 and H2. Target/trigger DNA can be cyclically used in this system to form the duplex DNA assemblies (H1-H2), which will bring the two G-quadruplex fragments into close-enough proximity to induce the formation of intact G-quadruplex as a colorimetric signal readout. Similarly, the two split target/trigger DNA sequences will reunite into a DNA sequence that is identical to the target/trigger DNA; then, the obtained replica can also be cyclically used as a new activator unit to trigger the CHA reaction, leading to the rapidly and significantly enhanced formation of target/trigger DNA replicas with the concomitant generation of a higher signal. This self-replication-based autocatalytic signal amplified approach has been successfully used to develop a rapid and visual assay for DNA and small molecule detection.
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