Introducing common oxazine fluorophores as new redox labels for electrochemical DNA sensors.

• Oxazine fluorophores ATTO655, ATTO680 and ATTO700 are electroactive. • ATTO655 exhibits very good performance in E-DNA sensing. • Good ssDNA vs dsDNA discrimination achieved by careful assessment of the ET rate. The electrochemical properties of three oxazine fluorophores, ATTO655, ATTO680 and ATTO700 have been investigated at gold electrodes. They display a reversible or quasi-reversible voltammetric behaviour involving either a 2e−, 2H+ or a 2e−, 1H+ redox process depending on the pH, at a formal potential located in the stability range of thiolate self-assembled monolayers (E°' ≈ −0.33 V vs. Ag|AgCl|3M KCl at pH 7.2). The performance of ATTO655 as redox label for electrochemical nucleic acid sensing was evaluated in a typical E-DNA configuration. The redox label has no detrimental impact on the folding of DNA, as shown with the i-motif forming sequence investigated here. An electron transfer rate constant around 40 s−1 was determined, which is comparable to the values reported for the popular methylene blue label. Hybridisation experiments show a significant signal variation between ssDNA and dsDNA, though it is emphasised that the sign and amplitude of the variation are highly dependent on the electrochemical parameters such as the frequency in square wave voltammetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]