Colorimetric screening of β-glucosidase inhibition based on gold nanocomposites

Abstract

This article presents a simple gold–cellobiose nanocomposites based colorimetric assay for the screening of β-glucosidase inhibitors. The nanocomposites are composed of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), particular cellobiose substrates, and 6-mercapto-1-hexanol. After β-glucosidase digestion, the AuNPs become more exposed and the attractive force between AuNPs is increased by the modified 6-mercapto-1-hexanol. Consequently, the aggregation of nanocomposites and the red shift of surface plasmon absorption can be observed. The absorbance ratio at 650 nm and 520 nm (A₆₅₀/A₅₂₀) of nanocomposites can be used to estimate the β-glucosidase activity. This technology could serve an alternative platform for the efficient screening of β-glucosidase inhibitors. Both the inhibition effect of heavy metals and surfactants on β-glucosidase could be analyzed by the detection of β-glucosidase activity. To summarize, the goal of this technical note is to develop a simple colorimetric method for the screening of β-glucosidase inhibitors.