Intense charge transfer surface based on graphene and thymine-Hg (II)-thymine base pairs for detection of Hg2+

In this article, we developed an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensor with a high-intensity charge transfer interface for Hg2+ detection based on Hg(II)-induced DNA hybridization. The sensor was fabricated by the following simple method. First, graphene oxide (GO) was electrochemically reduced onto a glassy carbon electrode through cyclic voltammetry. Then, amino-labeled double-stranded (ds)DNA was assembled on the electrode surface using 1-pyrenebutyric acid N-hydroxysuccinimide as a linker between GO and DNA. The other terminal of dsDNA, which was labeled with biotin, was linked to CdSe quantum dots via biotin-avidin interactions. Reduced graphene oxide has excellent electrical conductivity. dsDNA with T-Hg(II)-T base pairs exhibited more facile charge transfer. They both accelerate the electron transfer performance and sensitivity of the sensor. The increased ECL signals were logarithmically linear with the concentration of Hg(II) when Hg2+ was present in the detection solution. The linear range of the sensor was 10(-11) to 10(-8) mol/L (R=0.9819) with a detection limit of 10(-11) mol/L. This biosensor exhibited satisfactory results when it was used to detect Hg(II) in real water samples. The biosensor with high-intense charge transfer performance is a prospect avenue to pursue more and more sensitive detection method. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.