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Updated: May 18, 2026
Engineering Molecular Recognition with Bio-mimetic Polymers on Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Published on: January 10, 2017
Turn-on fluorescence sensor based on single-walled-carbon-nanohorn-peptide complex for the detection of thrombin
Shuyun Zhu1, Zhongyuan Liu, Lianzhe Hu
1State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences Changchun, Jilin 130022, PR China.
Abstract:
Proteases play a central role in several widespread diseases. Thus, there is a great need for the fast and sensitive detection of various proteolytic enzymes. Herein, we have developed a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based protease biosensing platform that uses peptides as a fluorescence probe for the first time. Single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWCNHs) and thrombin were used to demonstrate this detection strategy. SWCNHs can adsorb a fluorescein-based dye (FAM)-labeled peptide (FAM-pep) and quench the fluorescence of FAM. In contrast, thrombin can cleave FAM-pep on SWCNHs and recover the fluorescence of FAM, which allows the sensitive detection of thrombin. This biosensor has a high sensitivity and selectivity toward thrombin, with a detection limit of 100 pM.
