Highly selective and sensitive detection of coralyne based on the binding chemistry of aptamer and graphene oxide

In this contribution, an organic small molecule (OSM)-participating interaction between its aptamer and graphene oxide (GO) is investigated by taking coralyne as an example. Based on their interactions, a simple, rapid, highly sensitive and selective fluorometric method for the detection of coralyne is developed. GO can effectively quench the fluorescence of dye-labeled aptamer, while stronger binding of the aptamer and its target can make the fluorescence be recovered, which have been well demonstrated by the studies of the fluorescence spectra, fluorescence anisotropy, and circular dichroism spectra. In this case, the coralyne can be quantificationally detected by the variation of the fluorescence intensity, where GO acts as an efficient signal-to-background enhancer. With the increase of the coralyne, the fluorescence intensity increases gradually and linearly proportional to the concentration of the coralyne in the range of 10-700 nmol L−1. This method is reliable, and has been successfully applied for the detection of coralyne in complicated matrixes.