Discriminative sensing of DOPA enantiomers by cyclodextrin anchored graphene nanohybrids

•Discriminative sensing of DOPA enantiomers was investigated.•Cyclodextrin (x-CD/rGO, x: α-, β-, γ-) anchored graphene nanohybrids were employed.•The electrochemical measurements and molecular docking studies were performed.•The results showed that γ-CD/rGO was the most convenient nanohybrid.

Discriminative sensing of chiral species with a convenient and robust system is a challenge in chemistry, pharmaceutics and particularly in biomedical science. Advanced nanohybrid materials for discrimination of these biologically active molecules can be developed by combination of individual obvious advantages of different molecular scaffolds. Herein, we report on the comparison of the performance of cyclodextrin functionalized graphene derivatives (x-CD/rGO, x: α-, β-, γ-) for discrimination of DOPA enantiomers. Within this respect, electrochemical measurements were conducted and the experimental results were compared to molecular docking method. Thanks to cavity size of γ-CD and the unique properties of graphene, rGO/γ-CD nanohybrid is capable of selective recognition of DOPA enantiomers. Limit of detection (LOD) value and sensitivity were determined as 15.9 μM and 0.2525 μA μM−1 for D-DOPA, and 14.9 μM and 0.6894 μA μM−1 for L-DOPA.

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