Fabrication of ferrocenyl glutathione modified electrode and its application for detection of cadmium ions

l＇-cysteaminecarbonyl-1-glutathionecarbonyl-ferrocene （Fc-GSH） was synthesized from ferrocene dicarboxylic acid and reduced glutathione （GSH） with 4 steps. IR and 1^H-NMR were used to characterize the products. Then Fc-GSH was immobilized on the surface of gold electrode. Cyclic votammetry （CV） was adopted to investigate the electrochemical properties of this Fc-GSH modified electrode in the absence and presence of Cd^2＋ aqueous solutions. The peak oxidation potential （Ea） and reduction potential （Ec） of Fc-GSH modified electrode were observed at Ea= 0.74 V and Ec= 0.64 V （vs Ag/AgCl） before the accumulation of Cd^2＋. This redox process is a monoelectron chemical reaction. The anodic shift is about 80 mV in the presence of 20 nmol/L of Cd^2＋ aqueous solution. Moreover, this shift is in proportion to the concentration of Cd^2＋ when the concentration of Cd^2＋ is lower than 20 nmol/L. So the modified electrode can be used as probes to detect cadmium ions with the limit of 0.1 nmol/L by cyclic voltammetry.

Improvement of a highly sensitive and specific whole-cell biosensor by adding a positive feedback amplifier

In this study,we designed a Cd^(2+)whole-cell biosensor with both positive and negative feedback cascade am-plifiers in Pseudomonas putida KT2440(LTCM)based on our previous design with only a negative feedback amplifier(TCM).The results showed that the newly developed biosensor LTCM was greatly improved compared to TCM.Firstly,the linear response range of LTCM was expanded while the maximum linear response range was raised from 0.05 to 0.1μM.Meanwhile,adding a positive feedback amplifier further increased the fluorescence output signal of LTCM 1.11–2.64 times under the same culture conditions.Moreover,the response time of LTCM for detection of practical samples was reduced from 6 to 4 h.At the same time,LTCM still retained very high sensitivity and specificity,while its lowest detection limit was 0.1 nM Cd^(2+)and the specificity was 23.29(compared to 0.1 nM and 17.55 in TCM,respectively).In summary,the positive and negative feedback cascade amplifiers effectively improved the performance of the biosensor LTCM,resulting in a greater linear response range,higher output signal intensity,and shorter response time than TCM while retaining comparable sensitivity and specificity,indicating better potential for practical applications.