Electrochemical detection of DNA by formation of efficient electron transfer pathways through adsorbing gold nanoparticles to DNA modified electrodes

The high-performance detection of nucleic acids is increasingly important in the early and accurate disease diagnosis. Herein, we describe a unique label-free electrochemical DNA biosensor, which is based on gold nanoparticles (GNPs) mediated electron transfer through a DNA monolayer modified gold electrode surface. We observed that the different states of DNA monolayers (single-strand DNA or triple-helix DNA) and the different sizes of GNPs have a significant effect on the electron transfer by the DNA modified gold electrodes. This DNA biosensing strategy avoids the complicated fabrication process of the DNA capture probes and minimizes the steps of electrode pre-treatment. Under optimal conditions, this method can sensitively and accurately detect the target DNA ranging from 10 pM to 100 nM with a detection limit of 1.47 pM.