Confined Gold Nanoparticles Enhance the Detection of Small Molecules in Label-Free Impedance Aptasensors

A.S. PEINETTI; H. CERRETI; M. MIZRAHI; G.A. GONZALEZ; S. RAMIREZ; F. REQUEJO; J. MONTSERRAT; F. BATTAGLINI

Nanoscale

Royal Society of Chemistry

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 7 p. 7763 - 7769

2040-3364

A controlled architecture of nanoelectrodes, with a similar size to small molecule-binding aptamers, is synthetized inside nanoporous alumina. Gold nanoparticles with a controlled size (about 2 nm) are electrogenerated in the alumina cavities, showing a fast electron transfer process toward ferrrocyanide. These caped-free nanoparticles are easily modified with a thiol-containing aptamer for the label-free detection of adenosine monophosphate by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Our results show that the use of a limited electrical conducting surface inside an insulating environment can be very sensitive to conformational changes, introducing a new approach to the detection of small molecules exemplified here by the direct and selective detection of adenosine monophosphate in the nanomolar scale.