Engineered three-dimensional Au-Cu bimetallic dendritic nanosensor for ultrasensitive drug detection in urine samples and in vitro human embryonic kidney cells model

Abstract

Bimetallic dendrites are hierarchical, self-assembled, and multi-branched nanostructures with unique and enhanced properties than their monometallic counterparts. In this direction, a novel gold copper (AuCu) bimetallic dendritic nanostructure has been engineered on the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by tuning the electrodeposition parameters with enhanced electrocatalytic activity. GCE/AuCuND sensor probe was systematically characterized by various physical and analytical techniques to study its physical and electrochemical properties. Acetaminophen (AP), an important clinical drug which is routinely used to treat pain and fever was tested as a model compound to evaluate the analytical performance of the fabricated sensor. The final sensor probe achieved a low limit of detection of 7.5 (±0.03) nM with a linear dynamic range of 100–1000 nM. The selectivity of the sensor probe was tested towards AP in presence of various co-existing molecules in body fluids, and negligible signals were observed towards such molecules. Human urine samples and in vitro human embryonic kidney cells were used to evaluate the sensor performance, where 89.5 to 96.4% of AP was recovered without any interference, indicating the sensors applicability in clinical settings. The sensor was found to be stable for 12 weeks, and the variation in current responses of probe to probe was found to be negligible. The fabrication and testing of AP using the sensor takes merely 12 min, hence extremely powerful in point-of-care testing in hospitals. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.