A novel electrochemical biosensor for lung cancer-related gene detection based on copper ferrite-enhanced photoinitiated chain-growth amplification.

We reported an electrochemical biosensor via CuFe2O4-enhanced photoinitiated chain-growth polymerization for ultrasensitive detection of lung cancer-related gene. In this work, photoinitiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was applied to amplify the electrochemical signal corresponding to lung cancer-related gene, and polymerization was triggered off under the illumination of blue light which was involved in copper-mediated reductive quenching cycle. At the same time, CuFe2O4-H2O2 system was also activated to enhance polymerization based on the photocatalysis of CuFe2O4, which was based on the reaction between •OH and methacrylic monomers to generate carbon-based radicals. Numerous ferrocene-based polymer was graft onto electrode surface through this amplification stages. The limit of detection was low to 1.98 aM (in 10 μL, ∼11.9 molecules) (R2 = 0.998) with a wide linear range from 0.1 fM to 10 pM. This strategy made a good trade-off between cost-effectiveness and sensitivity, and it also presented a high selectivity and anti-interference. In addition, the operation was greatly simplified and detection time was also shortened, which endowed this electrochemical DNA biosensor great application potential.