Sugar sensing with synthetic multifunctional pores

Recently, synthetic multifunctional pores have been identified as "universal" detectors of chemical reactions. In this report, we show that with the assistance of enzymes as variable co-sensors, synthetic multifunctional pores can serve as similar universal sensors of variable components in mixed analytes. Sugar sensing in soft drinks is used to exemplify this new concept. This is achieved using invertase and hexokinase as co-sensors and a new synthetic multifunctional pore capable of discriminating between ATP and ADP in an "on-off" manner as sensor. The on-off discrimination between ATP as good and ADP as poor pore blocker is shown to be reasonably tolerant of changing experimental conditions. These results identify universal sensing with synthetic multifunctional pores as a robust, sensitive, and noninvasive method with appreciable promise for practical applications.