PVA-based nanobiosensor for ultrasensitive detection of folic acid by fluorescence quenching

By Sudesna Chakravarty and Priyanka Dutta and Sanjeeb Kalita and Neelotpal Sen Sarma
Published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical NULL 2016

Abstract

The present work demonstrates in vitro folic acid sensing with a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) based hybrid hydrogel as an efficient and cost effective fluorescence quenching based sensor. This new sensor PVA-tryptophan-CdTe \QDs\ (PTQ), exhibited better sensing efficiency with an excellent limit of detection (0.57 pg/ml) compared to commercially available \ELISA\ kits. The excellent sensitivity was attributed to a combination of a strong Photoinduced Electron Transfer process and an Inner Filter Effect in the sensor-folic acid interaction. The real time sensing applications of the sensor was investigated for folic acid present in the blood serum samples of healthy mice and human; and cancer infected mice and human. Our sensor exhibited efficient sensing for folic acid in the blood serum samples of acute myeloid leukemia [limit of detection (LOD) 42.29 ng/ml] and ovarian cancer effected patients (LOD 365 ng/ml). The \LOD\ value indicates that our sensor is highly efficient toward sensing of \FA\ in acute myeloid leukemia as its \LOD\ value lies below 110 ng/ml. Such works will help to bring together material chemists, biologists and clinicians in a single platform to develop cost effective, photostable and specific assays for diagnostic purposes.

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