Magneto-electrochemical method for chiral recognition of amino acid enantiomers

Chiral recognition of enantiomers with identical mirror-symmetric molecular structures is important for the analysis of biomolecules, and it conventionally relies on stereoselective interactions in chiral chemical environments. Here, we develop a magneto-electrochemical method for the enhanced detection of chiral amino acids (AAs), that combines the advantages of the high sensitivity of electrochemiluminescent (ECL) biosensors and chirality-induced effects under a magnetic field. The ECL difference between L- and D-enantiomers can be amplified over 35-fold under a field of 3.5 kG, and the chiral discrimination can be achieved in dilute AA solutions down to the nM level. The field-dependent ECL and chronocoulometry measurements suggest that chiral AAs can lock the spins on their radicals and thus enlarge the ECL change under applied magnetic fields (magneto-ECL, MECL), which explains the field-enhanced chiral discrimination of AA enantiomers. Finally, a detailed protocol is demonstrated for the identification of unknown AA solutions, in which the species, chirality and concentration of AAs can be determined simultaneously from the 2D plots of the ECL and MECL results. This work benefits the development of field-assisted detection methods and represents a promising and universal strategy for the comprehensive analysis of chiral biomolecules.