A novel ATP quantification method combining glucose phosphorylation with surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is an important small biological molecule in all living organisms and the level of it is a vital physiological index associated with many diseases. In this study, a convenient, sensitive and precise method is proposed to quantify ATP that combines glucose phosphorylation with the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique. First, a portion of glucose was consumed by ATP in the glucose phosphorylation reaction. Then, the quantitative determination of the residual glucose was realized by utilizing the SERS technique instead of classical spectrophotometry to analyze the charge transfer complex (CTC) of a chromogen. The ATP concentration of a sample can be determined by subtracting the residual glucose from the original amount. We have demonstrate that ATP is detectable and quantifiable from a glucose concentration 1–1000 times that of the ATP. The detection limit of ATP is as low as 4.69   ×   10 −7   M, which is sufficient for the quantification of ATP.