FTO – an Electrode Material for the Stable Electrochemical Determination of Dopamine

Dopamine and other catecholamines play a keyrole for the interaction of numerous processes in the neuronal network. Hence, numerous detection methods have been developed. Electrochemical sensor developments for catecholamines are characterized mostly by complex modification strategies in order to avoid a disturbance of the sensor signal by interfering substances. Here the application of fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) as electrode material for dopamine detection is reported avoiding the necessity of expensive modifications and stability problems. This FTO based electrode allows the discrimination between dopamine and its precursor as well as its methylated degradation product and is not disturbed by typical interfering compounds (ascorbic acid, uric acid) and is characterized by high linearity and stability of the sensor signal for repeated measurements.     

The Signal Amplification in Electrochemical Detection of Chloramphenicol Using Sulfonated Polyaniline‐chitosan Composite as Redox Capacitor

In this work, a novel redox capacitor was designed for signal amplification in electrochemical detection. It was fabricated by co‐electrodeposition of a conducting polymer, sulfonated polyaniline (SPAN) and chitosan on a glass carbon electrode, and its function was evaluated for being a localized source to transfer electron between FcCOOH (Fc) and Ru(NH₃)₆Cl₃ in solution via redox cycling. Furthermore, the electrochemical detection of chloramphenicol, a broad‐spectrum antibiotic was performed using the redox capacitor in the presence of Fc. A significant amplification in cathodic current response of chloramphenicol was obtained through a continuous redox‐cycling reaction. The performance of the amplifying signal responded linearly to chloramphenicol in a concentration range of 0.05 to 50.0 μmol L⁻¹ with a low detection limit of 0.01 μmol L⁻¹. The proposed approach exhibited good reproducibility and stability, and could be used for detection of chloramphenicol in eye drops by standard addition method with the recoveries from 96.5 % to 103.0 %.     

Signal modelization for improved precision of assessment of minimum and mean telomere lengths

Telomere length is an important measure of cell and tissue regenerative capacities. The mean telomere length is classically used as global indicator of a tissue telomere length. In skeletal muscle, which is made of postmitotic myonuclei and satellite cells (muscle stem cells), minimum telomere length is also used to assess the telomere length of satellite cells and newly incorporated myonuclei. At present, the estimation of the method reproducibility during the assessment of mean and minimum telomere length using Southern blot analysis has never been documented. The aim of this report is to describe a signal modelization for improved precision of assessment of minimum and mean telomere lengths and to document the method reproducibility. Telomeres are assessed using a Southern technique where the gel is directly hybridized with the specific probe without the membrane-transferring step in order to prevent telomeric low signal loss. We found that the improved signal analysis for determination of telomere length is associated with coefficients of variation ranging from 1.37 to 4.29% for the mean telomeric restriction fragment (TRF) length and from 2.04 to 4.95% for the minimum TRF length. Improved method reproducibility would allow saving time and biological material as duplicate and triplicate measurement of the same sample is no longer required.     

A study on the optimal English speech level for Chinese listeners in classrooms

Speech intelligibility in classrooms affects the learning efficiency of students directly, especially for the students who are using a second language. The speech intelligibility value is determined by many factors such as speech level, signal to noise ratio, and reverberation time in the rooms. This paper investigates the contributions of these factors with subjective tests, especially speech level, which is required for designing the optimal gain for sound amplification systems in classrooms. The test material was generated by mixing the convolution output of the English Coordinate Response Measure corpus and the room impulse responses with the background noise. The subjects are all Chinese students who use English as a second language. It is found that the speech intelligibility increases first and then decreases with the increase of speech level, and the optimal English speech level is about 71 dBA in classrooms for Chinese listeners when the signal to noise ratio and the reverberation time keep constant. Finally, a regression equation is proposed to predict the speech intelligibility based on speech level, signal to noise ratio, and reverberation time.     

Urinary exposure marker discovery for toxicants using ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography coupled with Orbitrap high resolution mass spectrometry and three untargeted metabolomics approaches

Human biomonitoring is the assessment of actual internal contamination of chemicals by measuring exposure markers, chemicals or their metabolites, in human urine, blood, serum, and other body fluids. However, the metabolism of chemicals within an organism is extremely complex. Therefore, the identification of metabolites is often difficult and laborious. Several untargeted metabolomics methods have been developed to perform objective searching/filtering of accurate-mass-based LC-MS data to facilitate metabolite identification. In this study, three metabolomics data processing approaches were used for chemical exposure marker discovery in urine with an LTQ-Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) dataset; di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) was used as an example. The data processing techniques included the SMAIT, mass defect filtering (MDF), and XCMS Online. Sixteen, 83, and 139 probable DINP metabolite signals were obtained using the SMAIT, MDF, and XCMS procedures, respectively. Fourteen probable metabolite signals mined simultaneously by the three metabolomics approaches were confirmed as DINP metabolites by structural information provided by LC-MS/MS. Among them, 13 probable metabolite signals were validated as exposure-related markers in a rat model. Six (m/z 319.155, 361.127, 373.126, 389.157, 437.112 and 443.130) of the 13 exposure-related DINP metabolite signals have not previously been reported in the literature. Our data indicate that SMAIT provided an efficient method to discover effectively and systematically urinary exposure markers of toxicant. The DINP metabolism information can provide valuable information for further investigations of DINP toxicity, toxicokinetics, exposure assessment, and human health effects.     

Ultrasensitive electrochemical biosensor for specific detection of DNA based on molecular beacon mediated circular strand displacement polymerization and hyperbranched rolling circle amplification

Using a cascade signal amplification strategy, an ultrasensitive electrochemical biosensor for specific detection of DNA based on molecular beacon (MB) mediated circular strand displacement polymerization (CSDP) and hyperbranched rolling circle amplification (HRCA) was proposed. The hybridization of MB probe to target DNA resulted in a conformational change of the MB and triggered the CSDP in the presence of bio-primer and Klenow fragment (KF exo⁻), leading to multiple biotin-tagged DNA duplex. Furthermore, the HRCA was implemented to product amounts of double-stranded DNA (ds-DNA) fragments using phi29 DNA polymerase via biotin-streptavidin interaction. After the product of HRCA binded numerous biotinylated detection probes, an ultrasensitive electrochemical readout by further employing the streptavidin-alkaline phosphatase. The proposed biosensor exhibited excellent detection sensitivity and specificity with a log-linear response to target DNA from 0.01 fM to 10 pM as low as 8.9 aM. The proposed method allowed DNA detection with simplicity, rapidness, low cost and high specificity, which might have the potential for application in clinical molecular diagnostics and environmental monitoring.     

核酸工具酶辅助的信号放大技术在生物分子检测中的应用

核酸工具酶具有催化能力高、序列识别能力强、反应条件温和以及生物相容性好等优势,因而被广泛地应用于核酸、蛋白质和小分子等生物活性分子的分析检测。本文主要对核酸工具酶进行介绍,并对应用于生物分子检测的一些核酸工具酶辅助的信号放大技术进行较为全面的综述,并展望了该技术的应用前景。     

Electrochemical Signal Tracing by Glucose Oxidase and Ferrocene Dually Functionalized Gold Nanoprobe for Ultrasensitive Immunoassay

A glucose oxidase (GOD) and ferrocene (Fc) dually functionalized gold nanoprobe was simply prepared for electrochemical immunoassay. By combination with sandwich immunoreaction at a carbon nanotube (CNT)‐based immunosensor and signal tracing of the nanoprobe through the Fc‐mediated GOD‐catalytic reaction, a new electrochemical immunoassay method was successfully developed. Both the multi‐enzyme signal amplification of the nanoprobe and the electron transfer promotion of the CNTs modified on the immunosensor greatly enhanced the signal response. Thus this method showed excellent analytical performance including ultrahigh sensitivity, wide linear range as well as good specificity, reproducibility, stability and reliability for human IgG measurement.     

基于无线通信的接触式带钢板形信号采集系统研制

针对滑环结构的接触式板形测试仪存在的不足,采用无线通信方式,研制了多单片机系统的嵌入式板形信号采集系统,通过光电接近开关的合理安装设计,巧妙解决了检测辊正反转时的信号采集和每组4个传感器信号区分问题,并给出了I2C总线系统中主、从单片机的流程。现场试验表明,在传感器为30组,检测辊10圈/秒转动时,系统的可靠性、数据传输速率和误码率均可满足板形闭环控制的要求。     

面向低强度无线网络信号接收谱参数估计研究

针对以北斗卫星导航信号为代表的亚纳秒级的低强度无线网络信号在定位中难以获取精确时间估计及角度估计,且易受环境噪声影响,使其定位精度不高等难题,本文提出了基于亚纳秒级的低强度无线网络信号接收谱参数估计方法。首先通过抽样方式,将发射信号抽样为多维独立子信号并独立建模,通过构造噪声空间与子信号空间在对应列向量正交化的基础上精确获取TOA估计;随后利用复数域映射,在获取TOA估计基础上采取比对方式精确地获取DOA估计。最后对本文参数估计方法进行了精度分析。测试数据显示：与 PM算法、ESPRIT算法相比,本文技术在TOA及DOA估计上更为精确;同时在信号强度低且背景噪声干扰严重的情况下,本文方法仍可有效的维持参数估计精度。