Abstract
In this study we immobilized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) onto thiol-functionalized poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) films as bioelectronic interfaces (BEIs) to be integrated into organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) for effective detection of dopamine (DA) and also as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)—active substrates for the selective detection of p-cresol (PC) in the presence of multiple interferers. This novel PEDOT-based BEI device platform combined (i) an underlying layer of polystyrenesulfonate-doped PEDOT (PEDOT:PSS), which greatly enhanced the transconductance and sensitivity of OECTs for electrochemical sensing of DA in the presence of other ascorbic acid and uric acid metabolites, as well as amperometric response toward DA with a detection limit (S/N = 3) of 37 nM in the linear range from 50 nM to 100 μM; with (ii) a top interfacial layer of AuNP-immobilized three-dimensional (3D) thiol-functionalized PEDOT, which not only improved the performance of OECTs for detecting DA, due to the signal amplification effect of the AuNPs with high catalytic activity, but also enabled downstream analysis (SERS detection) of PC on the same chip. We demonstrate that PEDOT-based 3D OECT devices decorated with a high-density of AuNPs can display new versatility for the design of next-generation biosensors for point-of-care diagnostics.
Highlights
Dopamine (DA), a neurotransmitter, plays important physiological roles in movement, motivation, memory, and other functions
We studied the optical transparency and surface morphology of the PEDOT-based bioelectronic interfaces (BEIs)
We have developed a PEDOT-based 3D-organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) device decorated with a high density of AuNPs for the effective detection of DA in the presence of multiple interferers, and as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrates for the selective detection of PC on the same chip
Summary
Dopamine (DA), a neurotransmitter, plays important physiological roles in movement, motivation, memory, and other functions. Determining the levels of DA in biological systems can provide valuable information for the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of these neurological diseases. Serum PC levels are correlated with chronic kidney disease and uremic symptoms (Bammens et al, 2003, 2006). Serum PC levels correlate with the prognosis of cardiovascular diseases. The effects of DA and PC in most diseases remain unclear, especially in neurological disorders and their presentation in chronic kidney disease. A challenge remains to develop methods for the rapid, sensitive, and selective detection of DA and PC in biological samples, thereby enabling assessments, during routine clinical diagnoses, of the complex relationships among the expression levels of secretions, the effects of uremic toxins, and the neurological disorders
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