Search

Cardiac troponin I (cTnI), a protein regulating myocardial contraction, stands the premier biomarker for diagnosing acute myocardial infarction and stratifying heart disease risk. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensing combines traditional PEC analysis with high bioconjugation specificity, rendering a prospective avenue for disease biomarker analysis. However, the performance of sensors often falls short due to inadequate photoelectric materials. Hence, designing heterojunctions with proper band alignment, effective transport and separation of photogenerated carriers is highly expected for PEC sensors. Meanwhile, doping as a synergistic strategy to tune the energy band edges and improve carrier transport in heterojunctions, can also enhance the sensing performance. In this work, bismuth-doped tin oxide and tin disulfide heterojunction (Bi-SnOS) was prepared via a simple one-step hydrothermal method and utilized as a highly sensitive platform. Integrating copper sulfide-coated nano-gold (Au@CuS), a yolk-shell shaped nanocomposites, as the double quenching probe, an excellent PEC biosensor was fabricated to assay cTnI via sandwich immunorecognition. Under optimal conditions, the proposed biosensor displayed a high-performance for cTnI in the range from 0.1 pg/mL to 5.0 ng/mL with a low detection limit (44.7 fg/mL, 3σ). The strong photocurrent response, high stability and suitable selectivity point out that the synergistic effect between heterojunction and doping provides a promising prospect for the design of new PEC materials., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Surface soils from 37 sampling sites including roadsides (RS), parks (PA) and residential areas (RE) of the Subtropical City, Guangzhou, were collected in December of 2005 and analyzed for 16 phthalate esters (PAEs). PAEs were detected in all surface soils analyzed, which indicate that PAEs are ubiquitous environmental contaminants. The summation operator(16)PAEs concentrations ranged from 1.67 to 322 microg g(-1)-dry weight (dw), with the median concentration of 17.7 microg g(-1)-dw, mainly originating from municipal solid waste leachate, discarded plastic effusion, municipal sewage and atmospheric depositions. Concentrations of PAEs were poorly correlated with soil organic carbon content, suggesting mixing process between local and on-going sources. Of the 16 PAEs, diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) dominated the PAEs, with the median concentrations of 1.63 microg g(-1)-dw, 1.80 microg g(-1)-dw and 14.8 microg g(-1)-dw, respectively, and accounted for 74.2-99.8% of the summation operator(16)PAEs concentrations. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to the distribution patterns of PAEs in the urban soils. Significant correlations existed among DiBP, DnBP, and DEHP, and between dimethyl phthalate (DMP) and diethyl phthalate (DEP). No significant differences of PAE congeneric profiles were observed between this and studies conducted elsewhere, which is consistent with the application of similar commercial PAEs around the world. As compared to the results from other studies, the urban soils of Guangzhou city were severely contaminated with PAEs. The environmental and human health risks posed by PAEs in the urban soils of Guangzhou city may deserve further attention.