DT-Diaphorase as a Bifunctional Enzyme Label That Allows Rapid Enzymatic Amplification and Electrochemical Redox Cycling.

The most common enzyme labels in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays are alkaline phosphatase and horseradish peroxidase, which, however, have some limitations for use in electrochemical immunosensors. This Article reports that the small and thermostable DT-diaphorase (DT-D) and electrochemically inactive 4-nitroso-1-naphthol (4-NO-1-N) can be used as a bifunctional enzyme label and a rapidly reacting substrate, respectively, for electrochemical immunosensors. This enzyme-substrate combination allows high signal amplification via rapid enzymatic amplification and electrochemical redox cycling. DT-D can convert an electrochemically inactive nitroso or nitro compound into an electrochemically active amine compound, which can then be involved in electrochemical-chemical (EC) and electrochemical-enzymatic (EN) redox cycling. Six nitroso and nitro compounds are tested in terms of signal-to-background ratio. Among them, 4-NO-1-N exhibits the highest signal-to-background ratio. The electrochemical immunosensor using DT-D and 4-NO-1-N detects parathyroid hormone (PTH) in phosphate-buffered saline containing bovine serum albumin over a wide range of concentrations with a low detection limit of 2 pg/mL. When the PTH concentration in clinical serum samples is measured using the developed immunosensor, the calculated concentrations are in good agreement with the concentrations obtained using a commercial instrument. Thus, the use of DT-D as an enzyme label is highly promising for sensitive electrochemical detection and point-of-care testing.