Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.
Nanotechnology. 2017 Jun 16;28(24):245501. doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/aa6d16. Epub 2017 Apr 13.
Silver ions have been used to sterilize many products, however, it has recently been demonstrated that silver ions can be toxic. This toxicity has been studied over many years with the lethal concentration at 10 μM. Silver ions can accumulate through the food chain, causing serious health problems in many species. Hence, there is a need for a commercially available silver ion sensor, with high detection sensitivity. In this work, we develop an ultra-sensitive silver ion sensor platform, using cytosine based DNA and gold nanoparticles as the mass amplifier. We achieve a lower detection limit for silver ions of 10 pM; this detection limit is one million times lower than the toxic concentration. Using our sensor platform we examine highly selective characteristics of other typical ions in water from natural sources. Furthermore, our sensor platform is able to detect silver ions in a real practical sample of commercially available drinking water. Our sensor platform, which we have termed a 'MAIS' (mass amplifier ion sensor), with a simple detection procedure, high sensitivity, selectivity and real practical applicability has shown potential as an early toxicity assessment of silver ions in the environment.
银离子已被用于消毒许多产品，但最近有研究表明，银离子可能具有毒性。多年来，人们一直在研究这种毒性，致死浓度为 10 μM。银离子可以通过食物链积累，导致许多物种出现严重的健康问题。因此，我们需要一种商业上可用的、具有高检测灵敏度的银离子传感器。在这项工作中，我们使用基于胞嘧啶的 DNA 和金纳米粒子作为质量放大器，开发了一种超灵敏的银离子传感器平台。我们实现了对银离子的检测下限为 10 pM；这个检测下限比毒性浓度低一百万倍。使用我们的传感器平台，我们研究了来自天然水源的其他典型离子在水中的高度选择性特征。此外，我们的传感器平台能够检测市售饮用水中的银离子。我们的传感器平台，我们称之为“MAIS”（质量放大器离子传感器），具有简单的检测程序、高灵敏度、选择性和实际应用的实用性，显示出作为环境中银离子早期毒性评估的潜力。
