Bovine serum albumin-based probe carrier platform for electrochemical DNA biosensing

A bovine serum albumin (BSA)-monolayer-based probe carrier platform is shown to improve the performance of a conventional thiolated single-stranded DNA probe self-assembled-monolayer-based electrochemical DNA hybridization biosensor. A detection limit of 0.5 fM can be obtained in a very reproducible manner (relative standard deviation <5%), along with high specificity. The performance of the biosensor can be attributed primarily to the enhanced spatial positioning range and accessibility of the probes on the BSA-based platform. Furthermore, the novel biosensor shows high resistance to nonspecific adsorption of nucleic acid and protein and can be directly employed in detection in biological fluids. These advantages give this simple developed methodology great promise for a wide range of nucleic acid testing.