Urinary dengue NS1 detection on Au-decorated ZnO nanowire platform.

Biodetection for non-invasive diagnostics of fluids, especially urine, remains a challenge to scientists due to low target concentrations. And biological complexes of the detection target may contain contaminants that also interfere with any assay. Dengue non-structural 1 protein (Dengue NS1) is an important biomarker for dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. Here, we developed an Au-decorated nanowire platform and applied it with a sandwich fluorophore-linked immunosorbent well plate assay (FLISA) to detect Dengue NS1 in urine. For the platform, we fabricated zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires to provide a high surface area and then coated them with gold nanoparticles (ZnO/Au nanowires) to simply modify the Dengue NS1 antibody and enhance the fluorescence intensity. Our platform employs a sandwich FLISA that exhibits high sensitivity, specifically detecting Dengue NS1 with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1.35 pg/mL. This LOD was 4500-fold lower than the LOD of a commercially available kit for Dengue NS1 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. We believe that our ZnO/Au nanowire platform has the potential to revolutionize the field of non-invasive diagnostics for dengue.

Benzimidazole-triazole ligands with pendent triazole functionality: unexpected formation and effects on copper-catalyzed aerobic alcohol oxidation.

A series of benzimidazole-triazole ligands (NN') having a pendent triazole arm with different triazole substituents including CH2Ph (3a), cyclo-C6H11 (3b), and CH2SiMe3 (3c) were obtained in moderate yields from Cu-catalyzed oxidative C-N cyclization of the respective amine-triazole compounds N,N'-bis((1-R-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methyl)benzene-1,2-diamine (2a-2c). Treatment of CuCl2 with one equiv. of the benzimidazole-triazole ligands afforded the corresponding CuII complexes with the empirical formula of Cu(NN')Cl2 (4a-4c). Crystal structures of 4b and 4c reveal mononuclear and dinuclear CuII complexes, respectively. Despite the differences in triazole substituents and their solid state structures, ESR spectra indicate the same molecular structures in CH3CN solution whereas CV data suggest similar redox potentials for 4a-4c. Catalytic activities for aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde follow this trend: 4c > 4a > 4b. In addition, the catalytic system 4c/TEMPO/Cu0/NMI (TEMPO = 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxyl, NMI = N-methylimidazole) exhibited high activities for oxidation of activated alcohols (i.e., benzyl alcohol derivatives and allylic alcohol) in CH3CN at room temperature.