Electroactive crown ester-Cu2+ complex with in-situ modification at molecular beacon probe serving as a facile electrochemical DNA biosensor for the detection of CaMV 35s

Abstract A novel electrochemical DNA biosensor has been facilely constructed by in-situ assembly of electroactive 4′-aminobenzo-18-crown-6-copper(II) complex (AbC-Cu 2+ ) on the free terminal of the hairpin-structured molecule beacon. The 3′-SH modified molecule beacon probe was first immobilized on the gold electrode (AuE) surface through self-assembly chemistry of Au–S bond. Then the crow ester of AbC was covalently coupled with 5′–COOH on the molecule beacon, and served as a platform to attach the Cu 2+ by coordination with ether bond (–O–) of the crown cycle. Thus, an electroactive molecule beacon-based biosensing interface was constructed. In comparison with conventional methods for preparation of electroactive molecule beacon, the approach presented in this work is much simpler, reagent- and labor-saving. Selectivity study shows that the in-situ fabricated electroactive molecule beacon remains excellent recognition ability of pristine molecule beacon probe to well differentiate various DNA fragments. The target DNA can be quantatively determined over the range from 0.10 pM to 0.50 nM. The detection limit of 0.060 pM was estimated based on signal-to-noise ratio of 3. When the biosensor was applied for the detection cauliflower mosaic virus 35s (CaMV 35s) in soybean extraction samples, satisfactory results are achieved. This work opens a new strategy for facilely fabricating electrochemical sensing interface, which also shows great potential in aptasensor and immurosensor fabrication.