Novel Chemiluminescence Sensing for the Visual Detection of Sarcosine based Upon an Iron-based Metal–Organic Gel with Peroxidase-like Activity

Abstract

Sarcosine is an important marker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer in urine. A chemiluminescence (CL) sensor based upon silver doped iron-based metal-organic gels (Ag/Fe-MOGs) was constructed for sarcosine determination. The Ag/Fe-MOGs with peroxidase-like activities were synthesized by a simple room temperature method to catalyze hydrogen peroxide to generate reactive oxygen species. During detection, sarcosine was oxidized by sarcosine oxidase (SOx) to produce H₂O₂ which was catalyzed by Ag/Fe-MOGs and accompanied by luminol chemiluminescence. Due to the peroxidase-like activity and high stability of Ag/Fe-MOGs, the luminol chemiluminescence was applied to measure sarcosine from 1 to 50 mM with a detection limit of 0.23 mM. Practical applicability was validated by determining sarcosine in human urine. This work not only offers a simple approach to a prepare catalyst with enzyme-like activity, but also provides an efficient and sensitive strategy for other substances in a rapid and cost-effective approach by replacing enzymes.

Keywords:

• Chemiluminescence
• metal-organic gels
• peroxidase-like activity
• sarcosine
• silver doped iron-based metal–organic gels

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that influenced the work reported in this paper.

Data Availability

The authors confirm that the results of this study are available in the article and the supplementary materials.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82104121, 81973280, 82173778), Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (KQTD20170810105439418), and the Key Program of Natural Science Foundation of Shenzhen (JCYJ20200109113410174).