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Published on: June 3, 2018
A novel electrochemical IL-6 sensor based on Au nanoparticles-modified platinum carbon electrode
Cai Wang1,2, Dongyuan Xin1, Qianwen Yue3
1The Second Affiliated Hospital, Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Taian, Shandong, China.
Insights
A novel electrochemical sensor was developed for detecting Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a key cytokine in diseases. This sensor demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity, offering a promising tool for clinical diagnostics.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Electrochemistry
- Immunosensing
Background:
- Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a critical cytokine involved in numerous cellular processes and disease pathologies.
- Accurate detection of IL-6 is vital for disease diagnosis and treatment monitoring.
- Existing detection methods may have limitations in sensitivity, specificity, or cost-effectiveness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel electrochemical sensor for the specific and sensitive detection of IL-6.
- To evaluate the sensor's performance characteristics, including detection range, limit of detection, specificity, and stability.
- To compare the sensor's performance with established methods like ELISA for clinical applicability.
Main Methods:
- Immobilization of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) on a gold nanoparticles-modified platinum carbon electrode.
- Utilizing an IL-6 antibody as a linker to create an electrochemical sensor for IL-6 recognition.
- Employing cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) to assess sensor performance.
Main Results:
- The developed sensor exhibited a linear detection range for IL-6 from 100 pg/mL to 700 pg/mL.
- A low limit of detection of 3 pg/mL was achieved, indicating high sensitivity.
- The sensor demonstrated excellent specificity, stability, and reproducibility, even in the presence of potential interfering substances like BSA, GSH, Gly, and NSE.
Conclusions:
- The novel electrochemical sensor successfully detected IL-6 in standard and biological samples with excellent performance.
- The sensor's results showed no significant difference compared to ELISA, validating its accuracy.
- This sensor holds significant promise for future applications in clinical diagnostics and disease monitoring.
Abstract:
Introduction: Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a multifunctional polypeptide cytokine composed of two glycoprotein chains, which plays an important role in many cellular reactions, pathological processes, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and so on. The detection of IL-6 plays a promising role in the cognition of clinical diseases. Methods: 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) was immobilized on the gold nanoparticles modified platinum carbon (PC) electrode with the linker IL-6 antibody, and finally formed an electrochemical sensor that specifically recognized IL-6. Through the highly specific antigen-antibody reaction, the IL-6 concentration of the samples to be detected. The performance of the sensor was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Results: The experimental results showed that the linear detection range of the sensor for IL-6 was 100 pg/mL-700 pg/mL and the detection limit was 3 pg/mL. In addition, the sensor had the advantages of high specificity, high sensitivity, high stability and reproducibility under the interference environment of bovine serum albumin (BSA), glutathione (GSH), glycine (Gly) and neuron specific enolase (NSE), which provided a prospect for specific antigen detection sensor. Discussion: The prepared electrochemical sensor successfully detected the content of IL-6 in standard and biological samples, showing excellent detection performance. No significant difference was found between the detection results of the sensor and that of ELISA. The sensor showed a very broad prospect in the application and detection of clinical samples.

