Silver nanoparticle driven signal amplification for electrochemical chiral discrimination of amino acids.

ß-Cyclodextrin (ß-CD) modified silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), denoted as ß-CD/AgNPs, were prepared by a simple one-pot method. Due to the inherent chirality of ß-CD, the developed ß-CD/AgNPs exhibited higher affinity toward l-tyrosine (l-Tyr) than d-tyrosine (d-Tyr), leading to serious aggregation of AgNPs in the presence of l-Tyr. Consequently, the l-Tyr induced aggregation of AgNPs can result in signal amplification in the differential pulse voltammograms (DPVs) of l-Tyr, which can be applied for the electrochemical chiral discrimination of the Tyr enantiomers. Other chiral amino acids including tryptophan and phenylalanine can also be successfully discriminated with the ß-CD/AgNPs, suggesting high universality of the developed chiral sensor.