A redox-modulated fluorescent strategy for the highly sensitive detection of metabolites by using graphene quantum dots.

In this paper, a redox-modulated fluorescent strategy based on the transformation of Fe2+/Fe3+ couple and enzymatic reaction for rapid monitoring glucose and uric acid using graphene quantum dots (GQDs) as fluorescent probe was developed. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) can be produced by the enzymatic reaction of a series of metabolites, such as glucose and uric acid. In the presence of hydrogen peroxide, Fe2+ can be oxidized and converted to Fe3+, which have a significant quenching difference in the fluorescence of graphene quantum dots (GQDs). Thus, a sensitive and label-free biosensor for the detection of uric acid and glucose was developed. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the fluorescence intensity was linearly correlated with the concentration of uric acid and glucose in the range of 0.1-45 μmolL-1 and 0.1-30 μmolL-1 with a detection limit of 0.026 μmolL-1and 0.021 μmolL-1, respectively. The proposed method was applied to the determination of uric acid and glucose in human serum samples with satisfactory results, which had potential application to detect metabolites associated with H2O2 release.