Application of graphene–pyrenebutyric acid nanocomposite as probe oligonucleotide immobilization platform in a DNA biosensor

Abstract A stable and uniform organic–inorganic nanocomposite that consists of graphene (GR) and pyrenebutyric acid (PBA) was obtained by ultrasonication, which was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV–vis absorption spectra. The dispersion was dropped onto a gold electrode surface to obtain GR–PBA modified electrode (GR–PBA/Au). Electrochemical behaviors of the modified electrode were characterized by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy using [Fe(CN) 6 ] 3 −/4 − as the electroactive probe. A novel DNA biosensor was constructed based on the covalent coupling of amino modified oligonucleotides with the carboxylic group on PBA. By using methylene blue (MB) as a redox-active hybridization indicator, the biosensor was applied to electrochemically detect the complementary sequence, and the results suggested that the peak currents of MB showed a good linear relationship with the logarithm values of target DNA concentrations in the range from 1.0 × 10 − 15 to 5.0 × 10 − 12  M with a detection limit of 3.8 × 10 − 16  M. The selectivity experiment also showed that the biosensor can well distinguish the target DNA from the non-complementary sequences.