Graphene oxide amplified electrogenerated chemiluminescence of quantum dots and its selective sensing for glutathione from thiol-containing compounds

Here we report a graphene oxide amplified electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) of quantum dots (QDs) platform and its efficient selective sensing for antioxidants. Graphene oxide facilitated the CdTe [QDs.sup.**+] production and triggered [O.sub.2.sup.**-] generation. Then, a high yield of CdTe QDs* was formed due to the combination of CdTe [QDs.sup.**+] and [O.sub.2.sup.**-], leading to an ~5-fold ECL amplification. Glutathione is the most abundant cellular thiol-containing peptide, but its selective sensing is an intractable issue in analytical and biochemical communities because its detection is interfered with by some thiol-containing compounds. This platform showed a detection limit of 8.3 [micro]M (S/N = 3) for glutathione and a selective detection linear dependence from 24 to 214 [micro]M in the presence of 120 [micro]M cysteine and glutathione disulfide. This platform was also successfully used for real sample (eye drug containing glutathione) detection without any pretreatment with a wide linear range from 0.04 to 0.29 [micro]g [mL.sup.-1]. 10.1021/ac901935a