Chemiluminescent choline biosensor using histidine-modified peroxidase immobilised on metal-chelate substituted beads and choline oxidase immobilised on anion-exchanger beads co-entrapped in a photocrosslinkable polymer.

A novel sensing layer design is presented based on the non-covalent immobilisation of enzymes on derivatized Sepharose beads subsequently entrapped in PVA-SbQ photopolymer. Two different modified Sepharose beads were used, IDA- and DEAE-Sepharose, for the immobilisation, respectively, of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) modified with histidine, and choline oxidase (Chx). The HRP-IDA-Sepharose-based sensing layer was used in a flow injection analysis chemiluminescent system as the basis of an H2O2 biosensor. It was shown that the pre-immobilisation on IDA-Sepharose beads enhanced the sensing layer stability and enabled the immobilisation of a larger amount of enzyme. A 1.8 mg charge of HRP-IDA-Sepharose beads in the sensing layer produced the most sensitive H2O2 biosensor. Such an analytical system exhibited very good performances, with a cycle time of 2 min and a detection limit of 15 pmol (detection ranging over four decades at least), and an unusual long operational stability of 200 measurements (CV, 3.5%). The HRP-IDA-Sepharose beads were then combined with Chx-DEAE-Sepharose. With this modified Sepharose-based biosensor the limit of detection for choline (S/N, 3) was equal to 0.5 pmol and the working range was 0.35 pmol-10 nmol. Moreover, the cycle time was only 2.5 min with the new sensing layer, and a long operational stability of 150 successive assays was found, with a variation coefficient of 2.6%.

An electrochemiluminescence-based fibre optic biosensor for choline flow injection analysis.

A fibre optic biosensor based on luminol electrochemiluminescence (ECL) integrated in a flow injection analysis (FIA) system was developed for the detection of choline. The electrochemiluminescence of luminol was generated by a glassy carbon electrode polarised at +425 mV vs. a platinum pseudo-reference electrode. Choline oxidase (Chx) was immobilised either covalently on polyamide (ABC type) or on UltraBind preactivated membranes, or by physical entrapment in a photo-cross-linkable poly(vinyl alcohol) polymer (PVA-SbQ) alone or after absorption on a weak anion exchanger, DEAE (diethylaminoethyl) Sepharose. The optimisation of the reaction conditions and physicochemical parameters influencing the FIA biosensor response demonstrated that the choline biosensor exhibited the best performances in a 30 mM veronal buffer containing 30 mM KCl and 1.5 mM MgCl2, at pH 9. The use of a 0.5 ml min-1 flow rate enabled the measurement of choline by the membrane-based ECL biosensors in 8 or 5 min, with ABC or UltraBind membranes, respectively, whereas the measurement required only 3 min with the DEAE-PVA system. For comparison, the detection of choline was performed with Chx immobilised using the four different supports. The best performances were obtained with the DEAE-PVA-Chx sensing layer, which allowed a detection limit of 10 pmol, whereas with the ABC, the UltraBind and the PVA systems, the detection limits were 300 pmol, 75 pmol and 220 pmol, respectively. The DEAE-based system also exhibited a good operational stability since 160 repeated measurements of 3 nmol of choline could be performed with an RSD of 4.5% whereas the stability under the best conditions was 45 assays with the other supports.