Selective enhancement of resonance light-scattering of gold nanoparticles by glycogen

Abstract Simple and sensitive methods for the determination of glycogen are desirable. This study was to establish the determination of glycogen based on the enhancement of the light-scattering intensity of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) at nanogram per milliliter levels. Glycogen enhancement was independent of temperature and was highest at pH 7. The enhancement was linear from 10 to 800 ng mL −1 with a 2 ng mL −1 detection limit (3 S/N). The standard deviation of the slope for 5 consecutive calibration runs was within 5%. Analysis of three artificial samples with varied glycogen concentrations had 98–102% recovery. Selected amino acids, glucose, lactose, BSA and trichloroacetic acid all showed minor effects on glycogen enhancement demonstrating the potential for glycogen determination in complex samples.