Colorimetric Strategy for Highly Sensitive and Selective Simultaneous Detection of Histidine and Cysteine Based on G-Quadruplex-Cu(II) Metalloenzyme

In this present work, we proposed a colorimetric strategy for simultaneous detection of histidine and cysteine based on G-quadruplex-Cu(II) metalloenzyme for the first time. Because of the adding of histidine or cysteine, the formation of G-quadruplex-Cu(II) metalloenzyme will be disturbed, thus the catalytic activity to TMB-H2O2 reaction is inversely proportional to the concentration of histidine or cysteine. With this strategy, the limit of detection in experimental measurement for histidine and cysteine is 10 nM and 5 nM, respectively, which are both lower than previous colorimetric arrays. With the help of NEM, cysteine is alkylated and the reaction between Cu(2+) is inhibited, so the selectivity can also be guaranteed. The cost is quite low since the developed array is label free and enzyme free by using low-cost DNA and Cu(2+). More importantly, the colorimetric detection operation is very simple without any further modification process.