Construction of a highly sensitive non-enzymatic sensor for superoxide anion radical detection from living cells.

A novel non-enzymatic superoxide anion (O2•-) sensor was fabricated based on Ag nanoparticles (NPs)/L-cysteine functioned carbon nanotubes (Cys-MWCNTs) nanocomposites and used to measure the release of O2•- from living cells. In this strategy, AgNPs could be uniformly electrodeposited on the MWCNTs surface with average diameter of about 20nm as exhibited by scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM). Electrochemical study demonstrated that the AgNPs/Cys-MWCNTs modified glassy carbon electrode exhibited excellent catalytic activity toward the reduction of O2•- with a super wide linear range from 7.00×10-11 to 7.41×10-5M and a low detection limit (LOD) of 2.33×10-11M (S/N=3). Meanwhile, the mechanism for O2•- reduction was also proposed for the first time. Importantly, this novel non-enzymatic O2•- sensor can detect O2•- release from cancer cells under both the external stimulation and the normal condition, which has the great potential application in clinical diagnostics to assess oxidative stress of living cells.