Herein, we describe a new molecular autocatalytic reaction scheme based on a H2O2-mediated deprotection of a boronate ester probe into a redox cycling compound, generating an exponential signal gain in the presence of O2 and a reducing agent or enzyme. For such a purpose, new chemosensing probes built around a naphthoquinone/naphthohydroquinone redox-active core, masked by a self-immolative boronic ester protecting group, were designed. With these probes, typical autocatalytic kinetic traces with characteristic lags and exponential phases were obtained using either a UV-visible or fluorescence optical detection, or also using an electrochemical monitoring. Detection of concentrations as low as 0.5 µM H2O2 and 0.5 nM of a naphthoquinone derivative were achieved in a relatively short time (< 1 hr). From kinetic analysis of the two cross-activated catalytic loops associated to the autocatalysis, the key parameters governing the autocatalytic reaction network were determined, indirectly showing that the analytical performances are currently limited by the slow nonspecific self-deprotection of boronate probes. Collectively, the present results demonstrate the potential of this new exponential molecular amplification strategy, which, due to its generic nature and modularity, is quite promising for coupling to a wide range of bioassays involving H2O2 or redox cycling compounds, or for being used as a new building block in the development of more complex chemical reaction networks.

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels represent a class of materials capable of reversibly switching their morphological and physicochemical characteristics. An ultrathin poly(acrylic acid) film (ca. 6 nm) grafted onto the gate of a p-type EGOFET is studied, and the correlation between the swelling state of the hydrogel and the transistor output characteristics is presented. The hydrogel-related swelling process occurring in basic medium causes an increase in threshold voltage due to the abrupt and intense increase of the negative charge density on the gate electrode. The variation of the drain current during the in situ modification of the pH electrolyte allows a quantitative analysis of the hydrogel switching kinetics. This work shows not only the relevance of EGOFET as an analytical tool in the broad sense, i.e., able to follow in real time phase transition processes of stimuli-responsive materials, but also the relevance of using a hydrogel for field-effect-based (bio)detection according to the ability of such material to overcome the well-known Debye length problematics.