Oxalic acid capped iron oxide nanorods as a sensing platform

A label free impedimetric immunosensor has been fabricated using protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) and monoclonal antibodies against Vibrio cholerae (Ab) functionalized oxalic acid (OA) capped iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanorods for V. cholerae detection. The structural and morphological studies of Fe3O4 and OA-Fe3O4, were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. The average crystalline size of Fe3O4, OA-Fe3O4 nanorods were obtained as about 29±1 and 39±1nm, respectively. The hydrodynamic radius of nanorods is found as 116nm (OA-Fe3O4) and 77nm (Fe3O4) by DLS measurement. Cytotoxicity of Fe3O4 and OA-Fe3O4 nanorods has been investigated in the presence of human epithelial kidney (HEK) cell line 293 using MTT assay. The cell viability and proliferation studies reveal that the OA-Fe3O4 nanorods facilitate cell growth. The results of electrochemical response studies of the fabricated BSA/Ab/OA-Fe2O3/ITO immunosensor exhibits good linearity in the range of 12.5-500ng mL(-1) with low detection limit of 0.5ng mL(-1), sensitivity 0.1Ωng(-1)ml(-1)cm(-2) and reproducibility more than 11 times.