Abstract
Adenosine deaminase plays a crucial role in the development and maintenance of the normal immune system. Although the determination of adenosine deaminase in serum may serve as a noninvasive diagnostic tool in evaluation of the active phase of systemic lupus erythematosus and the severity of this disease, detection of this analyte in a biologically complex mixture remains a major challenge. In this report, a colorimetric biosensor is reported for the determination of adenosine deaminase activity. The sensor employed DNAzyme as the signal transformation element which does not have a complicated label process. The proposed method was simple, rapid, and economical, allowing monitoring of adenosine deaminase to levels less than 0.1 U L−1. The simplicity of this device suggests it may be a candidate for the rapid screening of proteins in human serum and have wide applications in the field of clinical diagnosis.
Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful to the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK2011168, BK2012105) and the Economic and Social Development Foundation of Wuxi (CSZ01010).