New type of redox nanoprobe: C60-based nanomaterial and its application in electrochemical immunoassay for doping detection.

Carbon nanomaterials were usually exploited as nanocarriers in an electrochemical immunosensor but rarely acted as redox nanoprobes. Herein, our motivation is to adequately utilize the inner redox activity of fullerene (C60) to obtain a new type of redox nanoprobe based on a hydrophilic C60 nanomaterial. First, C60 nanoparticles (C60NPs) were prepared by phase-transfer method and functionalized with amino-terminated polyamidoamine (PAMAM) to obtain the PAMAM decorated C60NPs (PAMAM-C60NPs) which have better hydrophilicity compared to that of unmodified C60NPs and possesses abundant amine groups for further modification. Following that, gold nanoparticles (nano-Au) were absorbed on the PAMAM-C60NPs surface, and the resultant Au-PAMAM-C60NPs were employed as a new type of redox nanoprobe and nanocarrier to label detection antibodies (Ab2). Doping control has become the biggest problem facing international sport. Erythropoietin (EPO) as a blood doping agent has been a hotspot in doping control. After sandwich-type immunoreaction between EPO (as a model) and Ab2-labeled Au-PAMAM-C60NPs, the resultant immunosensor was further incubated with a drop of tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOAB) which acts as booster to arouse the inner redox activity of Au-PAMAM-C60NPs, thus a pair of reversible redox peaks is observed. As a result, the proposed immunosensor shows a wide linear range and a relatively low detection limit for EPO. This strategy paves a new avenue for exploring the redox nanoprobe based on carbon nanomaterials in the electrochemical biosensor field.