Graphene oxide-regulated low-background aptasensor for the “turn on” detection of tetracycline

Tetracyclines (TC) are a common antibiotic for using in livestock breeding and healthcare; however, due to the inappropriate application of TCs, more than 75% of TCs are excreted and released into the environment in an active form through human and animal urine and feces, which results in high levels of TCs in the ecological system, causing adverse effects on the food safety and human health. Thus, the high-performance monitoring of TC pollution is necessary. In this work, a highly sensitive fluorescent aptasensor was developed that was based on graphene oxide (GO) regulation of low background signal and target-induced fluorescence restoration. In the absence of analyte, the DNA probe (TC aptamer) was adsorbed completely by GO and failed to enhance the fluorescence of SYBR gold (SG), thereby resulting in a low background signal. When the TC-included samples were added, the DNA probe formed an aptamer-TC complex, thereby separating from the surface of the GO and inducing the fluorescence of SG. Under optimal conditions, the proposed strategy could detect TC concentrations of less than 6.2 × 10−3 ng mL−1, which is four orders of magnitude better than the detection limit of the “turn off” mode (53.9511 ng mL−1). Moreover, this aptasensor has been used to detect TC from milk samples and wastewater samples, and its satisfactory performances demonstrate that the proposed strategy can be applied in practice for TC monitor in food safety and environmental protection. Therefore, we believe that this work is meaningful in pollution monitoring, environment restoration and emergency treatment.