Sensitivity Comparison of Macro- and Micro-electrochemical Biosensors for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Biomarker Detection

Abstract

Selectivity and sensitivity are important figures of merit in the design and optimization of electrochemical biosensors. The efficiency of the fabricated immunosensing surface can easily be influenced by several factors, such as detection limit, non-specific binding, and type of sensing platform. Here, we demonstrate the effect of macro- and micro-sized planner working electrodes (4 mm and 400 um diameter, respectively) on the electrochemical behavior and the performance of the developed biosensor to detect human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). The fabricated screen-printed sensor was constructed by modifying the carbon macro- and micro-electrodes with a linker, 1-pyrenebutyric acid-N-hydroxysuccinimide ester (PANHS) and immobilization of anti-hCG antibodies to detect specifically the hCG protein. The characterization of the developed electrodes was performed by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV). Each immunesensing system has its unique electrochemical behavior which might be attributed to arrangement of particles on the surface. However, the smaller surface area of the micro-electrode is found to show higher sensitivity (1 pg/mL) compared to the macro-electrode sensor with a lower detection limit of 100 pg/mL. The proposed assay represents a promising approach that is highly effective for specific detection of an analyte and can be exploited to target biomarkers for a variety of point-of-care diagnostic applications.