Apamer-based sensitive and label-free electrochemical detection of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin via recycling amplification cascades

Abstract

Sensitive and selective detection of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is critical for the prediction and early diagnosis of acute renal injury. In this work, the establishment of an aptamer-based, highly sensitive and label-free method for detecting NGAL in diluted human serums via metal ion-dependent DNAzyme- and exonuclease III (Exo III)-triggered recycling signal amplification cascades is described. NGAL binds with the aptamer strands in the DNAzyme/aptamer duplexes and results in the liberation of the metal ion-dependent DNAzyme sequences to cleave the hairpin signal probes on the electrode to liberate the G-quadruplex and intermediate strands. The released intermediate strands further complement with the DNAzyme/aptamer duplexes to form favorable substrate for Exo III, which digests the duplexes to release the DNAzyme strands to initiate the cascaded recycling cycles for the yield of plenty of G-quadruplex strands. Hemin can associate with G-quadruplex strands to produce many G-quadruplex/hemin complexes and electrochemical reduction of hemin thus generates highly amplified current for detecting NGAL with the detection limit of 4.45 ng mL−1. Such biosensor also shows high selectivity and can be utilized for monitoring NGAL spiked in diluted serum, indicating its extension potential for detecting various protein biomarkers with different aptamers for disease diagnosis.