Single bead-based electrochemical biosensor

A simple, robust, single bead-based electrochemical biosensor was fabricated and characterized. The sensor's working electrode consists of an electrochemically etched platinum wire, with a nominal diameter of 25 mu m, hermetically heat-fusion sealed in a pulled glass capillary (micropipette). The sealing process does not require any epoxy or glue. A commercially available, densely functionalized agarose bead was mounted on the tip of the etched platinum wire. The use of a pre-functionalized bead eliminates the tedious and complicated surface functionalization process that is often the bottleneck in the development of electrochemical biosensors. We report on the use of a biotin agarose bead-based, micropipette, electrochemical (Bio-BMP) biosensor to monitor H2O2 concentration and the use of a streptavidin bead-based, micropipette, electrochemical (SA-BMP) biosensor to detect DNA amplicons. The Bio-BMP biosensor's response increased linearly as the H2O2 concentration increased in the range from 1 x 10(-6) to 1.2 x 10(-4) M with a detection limit of 5 x 10(-7) M. The SA-BMP was able to detect the amplicons of 1 pg DNA template of B. Cereus bacteria, thus providing better detection sensitivity than conventional gel-based electropherograms. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.