Nitrogen and Sulfur Codoped Reduced Graphene Oxide as a General Platform for Rapid and Sensitive Fluorescent Detection of Biological Species

Nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) codoped reduced graphene oxide (N,S-rGO) was synthesized through a facile solvothermal process. The introduction of N and S heteroatoms into GO effectively activated the sp2-hybridized carbon lattice and made the material an ideal electron/energy acceptor. Such unique properties enable this material to perform as a general platform for rapid and sensitive detection of various biological species through simple fluorescence quenching and recovering. When quantum dot (QD)-labeled HBV (human being disease-related gene hepatitis B virus DNA) and HIV (human being disease-related gene human immunodeficiency virus DNA) molecular beacon probes were mixed with N,S-rGO, QD fluorescence was quenched; when target HBV and HIV DNA were added, QD fluorescence was recovered. By the recovered fluorescence intensity, the target virus DNA detection limits were reduced to 2.4 nM for HBV and 3.0 nM for HIV with detection time of less than 5 min. It must be stressed out that different viruses in the same homogeneous aqueous media could be discriminated and quantified simultaneously through choosing diverse QD probes with different colors. Moreover, even one mismatched target DNA could be distinguished using this method. When altering the molecular beacon loop domain to protein aptamers, this sensing strategy was also able to detect thrombin and IgE in 5 min with detection limits of 0.17 ng mL–1 and 0.19 ng mL–1, respectively, which was far more rapid and sensitive than bare GO-based fluorescence detection strategy.