Magnetic Electrochemical Nanobiosensors for Detection of Neuron-Specific Enolase

Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) has been identified as the specific biomarker for many diseases, the detection of NSE can provide clinical data for early diagnosis, detection, and prognosis of the diseases. In this work, a type of magnetic electrochemical nano-biosensors was constructed for the detection of NSE. Firstly, α-Fe2O3/Fe3O4(α-iron trioxide/ferriferrous oxide, αITFO) magnetic heterogeneous nanorods (MHNRs) with average length of 290 nm, average diameter of 32 nm, and Ms of 11.8 emu/g were successfully fabricated via the hydrolysis and calcination-reduction process. Subsequently, AuNPs with average size of 10 nm were loaded onto αITFO MHNRs, and combined with aptamer (Apt) through Au-S bonds, and then BSA proteins were employed to block the non-specific sites, the αITFO@Au-Apt/BSA magnetic nano-biosensors for NSE detection were successfully constructed. The nano-biosensors revealed wider liner range of 1 ng/mL – 1 μg/mL with LOD of 0.89 ng/mL and LOQ of 2.97 ng/mL, excellent selectivity, reproducibility (RSD = 2.07%), stability (RSD =1.33%), and the dependable detectability of real sample with the recovery of 98.9% – 109.3% and RSD < 5%. All the results suggested the promising prospect of the NSE electrochemical nano-biosensors in clinical examination area.