A novel ECL method for histone acetyltransferases (HATs) activity analysis by integrating HCR signal amplification and ECL silver clusters

A novel electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) method combining ECL property of silver clusters and hybridization chain reaction (HCR) signal amplification strategy has been designed for the analysis of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) activity and inhibitor evaluation. In this strategy, the substrate peptide of HAT released from the electrode surface due to the charge change based on the acetylated reaction in the presence of HATs, and then the exposed DNA on the electrode initiated the HCR to form the supersandwich DNA sequence, which can adsorb Ag+, and the silver clusters (AgNCs) generated by the electrochemical reduction. The ECL signal generated by AgNCs can be utilized for HATs activities detection. The detection limit of the as-prepared ECL method was 0.49 nM (S/N = 3). The novel ECL method can be used for HATs activity analysis and inhibition in MCF-7 cell lysates which shows high promise in HATs-related clinical diagnostics.