Ratiometric Antifouling Electrochemical Biosensors Based on Multifunctional Peptides and MXene Loaded with Au Nanoparticles and Methylene Blue

A universal strategy for the construction of ratiometric antifouling electrochemical biosensors was developed based on multi-functional peptides and 2D nanomaterial MXene loaded with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and methylene blue (MB). The nanocomposite of MXene loaded with AuNPs and MB (MXene-Au-MB) exhibited excellent conductivity, where the AuNPs were able to capture biomolecules containing sulfhydryl terminus, and the MB molecules were used to generate electrochemical signal. The MXene-Au-MB was fixed on the electrode surface by Nafion, and the anchored peptide captured the electrochemical signal probe carboxyl-modified ferrocene (Fc) to construct an electrochemical biosensor. The multifunctional peptide containing the anchoring, antifouling, and recognizing sequences endowed the sensing surface not only the assaying function but also the capability to resist nonspecific adsorption from complex samples. In the biosensing system, with the increase in the target concentration, the electrochemical signal of MB remained constant, whereas the electrochemical signal of Fc gradually decreased, and the ratiometric detection strategy greatly improved the accuracy of the biosensor. In the presence of a model target prostate-specific antigen (PSA), the recognizing sequence was recognized and cleaved, and the ratiometric signal of Fc and MB indicated the concentration of PSA accurately and sensitively, with a detection range from 5 pg/mL to 10 ng/mL and a limit of detection of 0.83 pg/mL. Electrochemical biosensors based on the MXene-Au-MB and multifunctional peptides possessed high selectivity, accuracy, and sensitivity even in real complex biological samples because of the excellent antifouling ability of the peptide. More importantly, the assaying of other targets can be easily realized with a similar biosensing strategy by changing the recognition sequence of the multifunctional peptide, and the detection of thrombin (TB) has also been achieved in this work.

Automated summary

A universal strategy for constructing ratiometric antifouling electrochemical biosensors using multifunctional peptides and 2D nanomaterial MXene was developed. The biosensors possess high selectivity, accuracy, and sensitivity in complex samples, with the capability to easily detect other targets by changing the recognition sequence of the peptides.