Electrospun carbon nanofiber-based electrochemical biosensor for the detection of hepatitis B virus

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to design the electrochemical DNA biosensor based on carbon nanofibers (CNFs) for detecting hepatitis B virus (HBV). The CNFs, due to high conductivity and surface-to-volume ratio, was known as an effective material in the electrochemical biosensor. In this work, we directly used electrospun CNF as the electrode. CNF electrode was modified with electropolymerized glutamic acid (Glu). Then, the probe DNA (pDNA) was conjugated to Glu modified CNFs electrode. The surface morphology of CNFs and Glu modified CNFs were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Electropolymerized Glu on the surface of CNF electrode was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) as well. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) was used to monitor the target DNA (tDNA). The tDNA was quantified at a linear range from 1 × 10-12 to 1 × 10-6 M with a detection limit of 1.58 × 10-12 M. This electrochemical HBV biosensor had good stability, repeatability, and selectivity for distinguishing complementary DNA from non-complementary and mis-matched DNA sequences.