Inherently electroactive graphene oxide nanoplatelets as labels for specific protein-target recognition

Graphene related materials have been widely employed as highly efficient transducers for biorecognition. Here we show a conceptually new approach of using graphene oxide nanoplatelets (50 x 50 nm) as voltammetric inherently active labels for specific protein-target molecule recognition. This proof-of-principle is demonstrated by biotin-avidin recognition, which displays that graphene oxide nanoplatelet labels show excellent selectivity. Therefore, it is expected that inherently electroactive graphene oxide nanoplatelet labels will play a similar role as electroactive gold nanoparticle labels which were developed more than a decade ago.