The integration of a closed bipolar electrode (c-BPE) array and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detection
received
a boost in applications in the detection of cell adhesion and disease-related
biomarkers. This work proposed a gold nanorod array based c-BPE–ECL system to realize an in situ image of endogenous hydrogen
peroxide (H2O2) efflux from living cells and
parallel analysis of endogenous H2O2 released
from multiple cells by converting electrochemical signals into optical
signals. The gold nanorod array with high density was prepared by
a repeating chronopotentiometry procedure with anodic aluminum oxide
(AAO) membrane as a template. The c-BPE array was
fabricated by assembling poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) chips on both
sides of the gold nanorod array. When an appropriate driving potential
is applied, H2O2 generated from living cells
at the sensing pole was reduced on the gold nanorod, triggering the
oxidation of the ECL reagent at the reporting pole, which allowed
the detection of H2O2 released from living cells.
Under phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) stimulation, H2O2 released from living HeLa, HepG2, MCF-7, and LO2 cells was
determined to be 47, 32.4, 25.7, and 6.3 μM, respectively. This
indicated that the amount of H2O2 released from
PMA-stimulated cancer cells was significantly higher than that from
the stimulated normal cells. This work presented a new approach for in situ imaging of H2O2 released from
living cells and could also be used to detect other electrochemically
active or non-electrochemically active molecules through simple cell
surface modification, which may have potential applications in cell
apoptosis study and disease diagnosis.