Site-directed introduction of disulfide groups on antibodies for highly sensitive immunosensors

The interface between the sample and the transducer surface is critical to the performance of a biosensor. In this work, we compared different strategies for covalent self-assembly of antibodies onto bare gold substrates by introducing disulfide groups into the immunoglobulin structure, which acted as anchor molecules able to chemisorb spontaneously onto clean gold surfaces. The disulfide moieties were chemically introduced to the antibody via the primary amines, carboxylic acids, and carbohydrates present in its structure. The site-directed modification via the carbohydrate chains exhibited the best performance in terms of analyte response using a model system for the detection of the stroke marker neuron-specific enolase. SPR measurements clearly showed the potential for creating biologically active densely packed self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in a one-step protocol compared to both mixed SAMs of alkanethiol compounds and commercial immobilization layers. The ability of the carbohydrate strategy to construct an electrochemical immunosensor was investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) transduction. Graphical Abstract Left: Functionalization strategies of bare gold substrates via direct bio-SAM using disulfide-containing antibody chemically modified via their primary amines (A), carbohydrates (B) and carboxylic acids (C). Right: Dependence of the peak height with NSE concentration at NSE21-CHO modified electrochemical immunosensor. Inset: Logarithmic calibration plot.