Fully optimized new sensitive electrochemical device for the selective determination of 6-thioguanine anticancer drug in wastewater and biological samples.

In present work, a novel voltammetric sensor for the determination of 6-thioguanine (6-TG) was fabricated. First, a graphite rod electrode (GRE) surface was modified via drop-coating of graphene oxide (GO) to increase the surface area of the electrode. Subsequently, molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) network was prepared using a facile electro-polymerization procedure, using o-aminophenol (as functional monomer) and 6-TG (as template molecule). Influences of test solution pH, dropped GO concentration and incubation time on the performance of GRE-GO/MIP were studied, and their values determined as 7.0, 1.0 mg/mL and 90 s, respectively. Using GRE-GO/MIP, 6-TG was measured in the range of 0.5-60 μM with a low detection limit (DL) of 80 nM (based on S/N = 3). In addition, the electrochemical device demonstrated good reproducibility (3.8%) and anti-interference ability toward 6-TG monitoring. The as-prepared sensor illustrated satisfactory sensing performance in real samples with recovery ranging from 96.5% to 102.5%. For the determination of trace amounts of anticancer drug (6-TG) in real matrices (biological samples and pharmaceutical wastewater sample), this study is expected to provide an effective strategy with high selectivity, stability, and sensitivity.