Premium
A Versatile New Paradigm for the Design of Optical Nanosensors Based on Enzyme‐Mediated Detachment of Labeled Reporters: The Example of Urea Detection
Author(s) -
LlopisLorente Antoni,
Villalonga Reynaldo,
Marcos M. Dolores,
MartínezMáñez Ramón,
Sancenón Félix
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201804706
Subject(s) - analyte , mesoporous silica , chemistry , combinatorial chemistry , nanosensor , nanodevice , oligonucleotide , urea , urease , biophysics , nanotechnology , materials science , biochemistry , dna , chromatography , mesoporous material , biology , catalysis
Here, a new bio‐inspired nanoarchitectonics approach for the design of optical probes is presented. It is based on nanodevices that combine 1) an enzymatic receptor subunit, 2) a signaling subunit (consisting of a labeled reporter attached to a silica surface), and 3) a mechanism of communication between the two sites based on the production of chemical messengers by the enzymatic subunit, which induces the detachment of the reporter molecules from the silica surface. As a proof of concept, a urea nanosensor based on the release of Alexa‐Fluor‐647‐labeled oligonucleotide from enzyme‐functionalized Janus gold–mesoporous‐silica nanoparticles (Au–MSNPs) was developed. The Janus particles were functionalized on the silica face with amino groups to which the labeled oligonucleotides were attached by electrostatic interactions, whereas the gold face was used for grafting urease enzymes. The nanodevice was able to release the fluorescent oligonucleotide through the enzyme‐mediated hydrolysis of urea to ammonia and the subsequent deprotonation of amino groups on the silica face. This simple nanodevice was applied for the fluorometric detection of urea in real human blood samples and for the identification of adulterated milk. Given the large variety of enzymes and reporter species that could be combined, this is a general new paradigm that could be applied to the design of a number of optical probes for the detection of target analytes.