Gold-decorated conical glass nanopore with tip pore size down to tens of nanometers was developed by a facile, green and controllable biomineralization method and successfully applied for electrochemical chiral sensing of arginine. The conical glass nanopore was modified by layer-by-layer electrostatic deposition of poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) and bovine serum albumin (BSA), and then a thin and smooth gold nanocluster (Au NC) film was formed in situ from HAuCl<sub>4</sub> using BSA as both a reducing agent and a stabilizing agent at pH of 11.5. The successful modification of single glass nanopore was proved by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, and ionic current rectification. In particular, the fluorescent Au NC film made the single glass nanopore visible under a fluorescent microscope and thus allowed the nanopore very easy to characterize. Based on the formed ion pairs between the ionized carboxyl groups of BSA and the guanidine group of arginine, as well as the advantages of the glass capillary-based nanopore sensing platform, the BSA-Au NC modified glass nanopore was capable of enantioselective recognition of arginine by ionic current rectification with a detection limit down to 1 fM. This study provides not only a strategy to metallize glass nanopores but also a facile method to characterization of glass nanopore without using destructive electron microscope. Moreover, the protein-gold adduct modified glass nanopore sensing platform could be explored for various biosensing applications.

Development of a biomineralization strategy for surface modification of single glass nanopore: Versatile nanopores for fluoresence observation and electrochemical chiral sensing

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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