Anisotropic In Situ-Coated AuNPs on Screen-Printed Carbon Surface for Enhanced Prostate-Specific Antigen Impedimetric Aptasensor

Abstract

An impedimetric aptasensor has been used to study the effect of charge transfer on the binding of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) to its aptamer. Full understanding of this mechanism will be beneficial to further improve its sensitivity for PSA detection in human semen at physiologically relevant concentrations. Bare gold electrodes (SPAuEs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-coated screen-printed carbon ink electrodes (AuNPs/SPCEs) were coated with aptamer solution at various concentrations and the sensor response to increasing PSA concentration in buffer solution examined. AuNPs were deposited onto carbon electrodes in 10 cycles. AuNPs/SPCEs were then coated with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid prior to aptamer immobilization at dose of 5 μg mL−1. The results indicate that anisotropic AuNPs/SPCEs outperform bare gold electrodes in terms of decreased amount of aptamer bunches as well as the number of intermediate PSA-aptamer complexes formed on the electrode surface. The key finding is that the fabricated aptasensor is sensitive enough [limit of detection (LoD) 1.95 ng mL−1] for early diagnosis of prostate cancer and displays linear response in the physiologically relevant concentration range (0 ng mL−1 to 10 ng mL−1), as shown by the calibration curve of the relative change in electron transfer resistance (ΔRCT) versus PSA concentration when aptamer/SAM/AuNPs/SPCEs were exposed to buffer containing PSA at different concentrations.