A graphene oxide-based FRET sensor for rapid and specific detection of unfolded collagen fragments

The unstructured collagen species plays a critical role in a variety of important biological processes as well as pathological conditions. In order to develop novel diagnosis and therapies for collagen-related diseases, it is essential to construct simple and efficient methods to detect unfolded collagen fragments. We therefore have designed a FITC-labeled collagen mimic triple helical peptide, whose adsorption on the surface of GO effectively quenches its fluorescence. The newly constructed GO/FITC-GPO complex specifically detects unstructured collagen fragments, but not fully folded triple helix species. The detection shows a clear preference for the collagen targets with complementary GPO-rich sequences. The conformation-sensitive, sequence-specific GO-based approach can be applied as an efficient biosensor for rapid detection of unfolded collagen fragments at nM level, and may have great potential in drug screening for inhibitors of unfolded collagen. It may provide a prototype to develop GO-based assays to detect other important unstructured proteins involved in diseases.