Rapid determination of dopamine in human plasma using a gold nanoparticle-based dual-mode sensing system

Dopamine plays a very important role in biological systems and has a direct relationship with the ability of learning and cognition, human desires, feelings and mental state, as well as motor functions. Traditional methods for the detection of dopamine are complicated and time-consuming, therefore it is necessary to explore rapid and accurate detection of dopamine with high sensitivity and specificity. Herein we report a dual-mode system of colorimetric and fluorometric analyses based on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and aptamers specifically targeting dopamine. Aptamers modified with the fluorophore were used as dopamine specific recognition probe and the sensing mechanism is based on the color change of AuNPs and the fluorescence recovery of fluorophore conjugated on the aptamers in the presence of dopamine. The addition of aptamers into AuNPs colloid solution would prevent the AuNPs from aggregation in the high-salt solution. The close distance between AuNPs and fluorophore conjugated on the aptamers would lead to the quenching of fluorescence signal. In the presence of dopamine, the conformation of the aptamers and the inter-particle distance would be changed, leading to the aggregation of AuNPs, which subsequently results in color change from red to blue and fluorescence signal recovery. The dual-mode sensing system demonstrated high specificity towards dopamine with the detection limit as low as 78.7 nM. The sensing system reflects on its simplicity as no surface functionalization is required for the nanoparticles, leading to less laborious and more cost-effective synthesis. The reaction time is only 6 min, demonstrating a simple approach for rapid analysis of dopamine. More importantly, the sensing system allows the detection of dopamine in both aqueous solution and complicated biological sample with sensitive response, illustrating the feasibility and reliability for the potential applications in clinical and biomedical analysis in the future.