| Abstract: | Performance of glassy carbon electrode on the determination of purines and DNA was found to be improved dramatically by activating the GCE with a simple but effective electrochemical pretreatment. Characteristics such as lowering of oxidation potential, enhancement of peak current and elimination of fouling effect were found for the activated GCE. By flow injection analysis, good reproducibility with relative standard deviations of 0.59 and 2.01% (n = 11) and rather low detection limits of 0.6 + 0.1 and 3.0 ± 0.4 nM can be obtained for the analysis of guanine and adenine. Solutions of denatured calf thymus DNA were analyzed by differential pulse voltammetry with the activated GCE. Good agreement between the obtained results and the known values confirms the feasibility of the activated GCE for DNA analysis. |
