High-performance electrochemiluminescence emitter of metal organic framework linked with porphyrin and its application for ultrasensitive detection of biomarker mucin-1

Abstract

Mucin-1, an essential transmembrane glycoprotein, was regarded as a promising biomarker for colon, breast, ovarian and lung cancers. Thus, its highly sensitive and selective detection is important to develop new analytical strategies. In this work, Zn-based metal organic frameworks with pyridine (Zn-Bp-MOFs) were synthetized via coordination to enhance the ECL responses of zinc meso-tetra(4-sulfonatophenyl) porphine (Zn-TP). The synthesized Zn-Bp-MOFs substantially accelerated the electrocatalytic reduction of K2S2O8 and excited electron amount of Zn-TP. For that, the Zn-TP linked Zn-Bp-MOFs (terminated as Zn-TP@Zn-Bp-MOFs) displayed 32-fold magnification in the ECL efficiency relative to free Zn-TP. By assembly of capture DNA (cDNA), functional luminophore effectively captured the released linked DNA (L-DNA) from double-stranded DNA (dsDNA, hybridization of aptamer DNA (aptDNA) and L-DNA) via the strong interactions between the aptDNA and mucin-1. Consequently, thionine was implanted into the groove of newly-formed dsDNA and severely quenched the ECL intensity of the emitter. The resulting biosensor showed wide linear range from 1 pg mL-1 to 10 ng mL-1 with a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.23 pg mL-1. Hence, such MOFs hold substantial promise to broaden their applications in photoelectric detection field.