A Copolymer Based Voltammetric Sensor for the Simultaneous Determination of Neuroendocrine Tumour Biomarkers

Neuroendocrine tumours are cancerous and fatal lumps that originate from endocrine and nerve cells. Herein we report the first voltammetric sensor for the simultaneous determination of neuroendocrine tumour biomarkers 5-Hydroxy indole acetic acid (HIAA) and Vannillyl mandelic acid (VMA). Glassy carbon electrode modified with a copolymer of taurine and glutamic acid by electropolymerisation process has been used for the determination of the analytes. The synergistic effect of the two conducting polymers gave remarkable voltammetric response for the biomarkers. Calibration measurements for the sensor were carried out using fast and feasible square wave voltametric technique. Detection limits as low as 4.19 × 10 −8 M (HIAA) and 6.16 × 10 −8 M (VMA) is possible with this voltammetric sensor with only tolerable interference from their coexisting species. To boot, spike recovery analysis of the analytes in artificial urine samples gave adequate recovery values, which proves the reliability of the sensor.