Issue 13, 2014

Enzymatic etching of gold nanorods by horseradish peroxidase and application to blood glucose detection

Abstract

Gold nanorods (AuNRs) have become some of the most used nanostructures for biosensing and imaging applications due to their plasmon-related optical response, which is highly sensitive toward minute changes in the AuNR aspect ratio. In this context, H2O2 has been used to trigger the chemical etching of AuNRs, thereby inducing a decrease of their aspect ratio. However, special conditions and relatively high concentrations of H2O2 are usually required, preventing the applicability of the system for biodetection purposes. To overcome this limitation we have introduced a biocatalytic species, the enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP) that is able to induce a gradual oxidation of AuNRs in the presence of trace concentrations of H2O2. Interestingly, the presence of halide ions has also been found to be essential for this process. As a consequence, other enzymatic reactions, such as those catalyzed by glucose oxidase, can be easily coupled to HRP activity, allowing the detection of different amounts of glucose. On the basis of these findings, we developed a highly sensitive and simple colorimetric assay that can be read out by the naked eye and allows the detection of physiological glucose concentrations in human serum.

Graphical abstract: Enzymatic etching of gold nanorods by horseradish peroxidase and application to blood glucose detection

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 Mar 2014
Accepted
18 Apr 2014
First published
22 Apr 2014

Nanoscale, 2014,6, 7405-7409

Author version available

Enzymatic etching of gold nanorods by horseradish peroxidase and application to blood glucose detection

L. Saa, M. Coronado-Puchau, V. Pavlov and L. M. Liz-Marzán, Nanoscale, 2014, 6, 7405 DOI: 10.1039/C4NR01323A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements