New electrocatalyst of Ni6MnO8@AB/PtNPs with efficient synergistic enhancement in electrochemical aptasensor for sensitive detection of neuron specific enolase

As one of the specific markers for small cell lung cancer (SCLC), the clinical value for serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE) detection in diagnosis, monitoring and therapy of SCLC is considerable. Herein, a sensitive amperometric aptasensor was developed for the detection of NSE based on nickel-manganese oxide@acetylene black/platinum nanoparticles (Ni 6 MnO 8 @AB/PtNPs) composite as signal amplifier. The combination of Ni 6 MnO 8 , AB and PtNPs not only showed synergistically catalytic activity to hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), but also possessed lots of binding sites for loading the thiol-terminated signal probes (TSPs) through Pt-S bonds. Additionally, nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes/poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/ZnO microflowers (N-CNTs/P/ZnO MFs) exhibited outstanding electric conductivity and was used as substrate material to load more biotin-terminated capture probes (BCPs). In the presence of the NSE, the TSPs and BCPs specifically recognized the NSE to form a sandwich-type electrochemical aptasensor, which exhibited a broad linear response range from 0.00001 ∼ 100 ng mL −1 and a low detection limit of 2.86 fg mL −1 (S/N = 3). In addition, the electrochemical aptasensor obtained favorable detection results in diluted human serum, indicating that it had potential application in clinical NSE detection.