Selective dopamine detection by SPR sensor signal amplification using gold nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, selective and sensitive detection of the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) in both aqueous solution and biological samples was performed using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on a molecular imprinting technique. For this, dopamine-imprinted poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-N-methacroyl-(L)-cysteine methyl ester-gold nanoparticles-N-methacryloyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester) [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] nanoparticles were prepared. Furthermore, to evaluate the imprinting efficiency, non-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPA] nanoparticles were designed using the same polymerization procedure except for the addition of dopamine molecules. To examine the effect of incorporating AuNPs to increase the SPR signal response, control experiments were carried out via the SPR biosensor produced using [PHEMAC/MAPADA] nanoparticles prepared without the addition of AuNPs. Characterization studies of dopamine- + imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] and non-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPA] nanoparticles was performed with a zetasizer and an FTIR-ATR spectrophotometer. In addition, dopamine-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] and non-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] SPR sensors were characterized by ellipsometer and contact angle measurements. The high imprinting efficiency (I.F: 9.67) of the dopamine-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] SPR sensor was determined by comparing it with the non-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPA] SPR sensor. A good linear relationship was obtained in the 0.01–0.5 ppb concentration range with correlation coefficients of 0.9818 and 0.9819, respectively. The dopamine-imprinted [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] SPR sensor was 5.53 and 4.59 times more selective for the target molecule dopamine than for epinephrine (EP) and norepinephrine (NE), respectively. The repeatability of the [PHEMAC-AuNPs/MAPADA] SPR sensor was assessed with a 0.5 ppb dopamine solution, with the percent relative standard deviation of the intra-assays (RSD) being less than 1.7%, indicating negligible loss of dopamine sensing capability after four adsorption–desorption cycles with the same sensor.