Abstract
To date, the production and development of portable analytical devices for environmental and healthcare applications are rapidly growing. Herein, a portable electrochemical sensor for monitoring of noradrenaline (NA) secreted from living cells using mesoporous carbon-based materials was fabricated. The modification of the interdigitated electrode array (IDA) by nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon spheres (N-doped MCS) and nitrogen-doped carbon hollow trunk-like structure (N-doped CHT) was used to fabricate the NA sensor. The N-doped CHT surface shows multiple holes distributed with micrometer-sized open holes (1–2 μm) and nanometer-sized thin walls (∼98 nm). The N-doped CHT surface heterogeneity of wrinkled and twisted hollow trunk structures improve the diffusion pathway and the NA molecules loading. The N-doped CHT/IDA showed a highly selective assay for monitoring of NA with high sensitivity (1770 μA/μM × cm2), a low detection limit (0.005 μM), and a wide linear range (0.01–0.3 μM). The N-doped CHT/IDA monitored the NA secreted from PC12 cells under various concentrations of simulation agents (KCl). The designed N-doped CHT/IDA provides a portable NA-sensor assay with facile signaling, good stability, high biocompatibility, in-vitro assay compatibility, and good reproducibility. Therefore, the designed sensor can be used as a portable sensor for NA detection in live cells and can be matched with portable smartphones after further developments.
Design of portable sensor for screening of noradrenaline (NA) secreted from living cells (PC12 cells) is fabricated based on nitrogen-doped carbon hollow trunk structure (N-doped CHT). The N-doped CHT/IDA shows highly sensitive and selective portable sensor assay for monitoring of NA in living cells. [Display omitted]
•Mesoporous carbon is used for portable analytical device for healthcare applications.•N-doped carbon (N-CHT) is used to modified interdigitated electrode array (IDA).•The N-CHT/IDA showed a highly selective assay for NA molecules monitoring.•Sensitive chipset NA-sensor based on N-CHT/IDA was designed with fast response time.•In-vitro assay monitoring of sereted NA in living cells have been established.