Novel nanoarchitecture of arginine-glycine-aspartate conjugated gold nanoparticles: a sensitive and selective platform for detecting arachidonic acid

A novel electrochemical approach for determination of arachidonic acid (ARA) was developed based on the linear arginine-glycine-aspartic-Au (RGD-Au) nanomaterial modified on glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The prepared material was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrochemical signal was obtained from the reduction of 1,4-naphthoquinone and ARA served as a proton source. Under the optimum experimental conditions, the RGD-Au-based electrode was used to analyze ARA. Meanwhile, the electrochemical characteristics were also studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The sensor showed a wider linear range from 0.5 to 100 μM and the linear fitting equation was I p (μA) = 0.0721 c  + 2.4583 ( R 2  = 0.9987) with a detection limit of 80 nM. The application of the sensor in real samples was tested and compared with that of LC-MS/MS. This sensor would be a promising platform for detection of ARA in blood plasma. Graphical abstract