Ultrasensitive Assay for Telomerase Activity via Self-Enhanced Electrochemiluminescent Ruthenium Complex Doped Metal–Organic Frameworks with High Emission Efficiency

Here, an ultrasensitive "off-on" electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensor was proposed for the determination of telomerase activity by using a self-enhanced ruthenium polyethylenimine (Ru-PEI) complex doped zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (Ru-PEI@ZIF-8) with high ECL efficiency as an ECL indicator and an enzyme-assisted DNA cycle amplification strategy. The Ru-PEI@ZIF-8 nanocomposites were synthesized by self-enhanced Ru-PEI complex doping during the growth of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), which presented high ECL efficiency and excellent stability. Furthermore, owing to the porosity of Ru-PEI@ZIF-8, the self-enhanced Ru-PEI complex in the outer layer and inner layer of self-enhanced Ru-PEI@ZIF-8 could be excited by electrons causing the utilization ratio of the self-enhanced ECL materials to be remarkably increased. To further improve the sensitivity of the proposed biosensor, the telomerase activity signal was converted into the trigger DNA signal which was further amplified by an enzyme-assisted DNA recycle-amplification strategy. The proposed ECL biosensor presented great performance for telomerase activity detection from 5 × 101 to 106 Hela cells with a detection limit of 11 cells. Moreover, this method was applied in the detection of telomerase activity from cancer cells treated with an anticancer drug, which indicated the proposed method held potential application value as an evaluation tool in anticancer drug screening.