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Single-atom electrocatalysis: a new approach to in vivo electrochemical biosensing

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Abstract

Modulation of interfacial electron transfer has been proven to pave a new approach to in vivo electrochemical monitoring of brain chemistry; however, designing and establishing highly efficient electrocatalytic scheme towards neurochemicals remain a long-standing challenge. Here, we find that recently established single-atom catalyst (SAC) can be used for catalyzing the electro-chemical process of physiologically relevant chemicals and thus offers a new avenue to in vivo electrochemical biosensing. To prove this new concept, we used Co single-atom catalyst (Co-SAC), in which the atomic active sites are dispersed in ordered porous N-doping carbon matrix at atomic level, as an example of SACs for analyzing glucose as the physiologically relevant model chemicals. We found that Co-SAC catalyzes the electrochemical oxidation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) at a low potential of ca. +0.05 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). This property was further used for developing an oxidase-based glucose biosensor that was used subsequently as a selective detector of an online electrochemical system (OECS) for continuous monitoring of microdialysate glucose in rat brain. The OECS with Co-SAC-based glucose biosensor as the online detector was well responsive to glucose without interference from other electroactive species in brain microdialysate. This study essentially offers a new approach to in vivo electrochemical analysis with SACs as electrocatalysts to modulate interfacial electron transfer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21790390, 21790391, 21621062, 21435007, 21874152), the National Basic Research Program of China (2016YFA0200104) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDJ-SSW-SLH030).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Hanfeng Hou & Meining Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Living Biosystems, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Fei Wu & Lanqun Mao

  3. Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yunhu Han, Dingsheng Wang & Yadong Li

  4. Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Ministry of Education, Anhui Key Laboratory of Molecule-Based Materials, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, 241000, China

    Junjie Mao

Authors
  1. Hanfeng Hou
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  2. Junjie Mao
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  4. Fei Wu
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  5. Meining Zhang
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  6. Dingsheng Wang
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  7. Lanqun Mao
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Meining Zhang or Lanqun Mao.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Hou, H., Mao, J., Han, Y. et al. Single-atom electrocatalysis: a new approach to in vivo electrochemical biosensing. Sci. China Chem. 62, 1720–1724 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9605-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9605-0

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