Assembling of aptamers as recognizing elements at Au electrodes for bacterial biosensing

• Grant number: 19/24873-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: June 01, 2020
• End date: November 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Lauro Tatsuo Kubota
• Grantee: Gustavo Arantes Lorga
• Supervisor: Elena Ferapontova
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Aarhus University, Denmark
• Associated to the scholarship: 19/05297-8 - Preparation and characterization of gold electrodes modified with nanotetrahedron of DNA: studies for biosensing, BP.MS

Abstract

Antibiotic-multiresistant bacteria are considered to be the next global health threat, thus the development of new devices for monitoring and diagnosis are considered emergencies for preventing and limiting their spread. Electrochemical sensors and biosensors are one of the most promising approaches to this problem, due to being both selective and sensitive even when considering the challenges of point-of-care applications. Other clear advantages are fast response times and inexpensiveness. The development of new nanostructured electrode architectures for biosensing applications is the frontier of knowledge and they are capable of allowing the detection at low concentration of high interest analytes. In recent years, DNA has drawn attention of the scientific community for its potential for nano construction of highly organized devices, using DNA origami approaches. Besides being a promising building block for nanostructured devices, DNA and RNA can be used as the sensor's recognition element, by either using a single strand for complementary strand detection (genosensor), or sequences with high affinity for a specific substrate, the aptamers (aptasensors). In either way, the use of a nucleic-acid-only approach for a new generation of sensors is of great interest, as it is still barely explored and not fully understood.Herein we propose to assemble aptamers with high selectivity for the model organism, the Escherichia coli on gold electrodes for a highly selective and quick quantitative and qualitative bacterial sensing and studying the answer mechanisms for the sensor. (AU)