Painless and sensitive pepsinogen I detection: an electrochemical immunosensor based on rhombic dodecahedral CuPt and MoS NFs.

Gastric cancer (GC) is a common malignant tumour of the digestive tract with a high mortality rate worldwide. However, many patients delay treatment due to the avoidance of the costly and painful procedure of gastroscopy. Therefore, an early convenient screening method is essential to improve the survival rate of GC patients. To address this issue, we constructed an electrochemical immunosensor supported by rhombohedral CuPt and MoS nanoflowers (MoS NFs) for rapid, painless and quantitative detection of the GC biomarker . Here, pepsinogen I was employed as a model protein biomarker to analyse the performance of the immunosensor. The rhombohedral dodecahedral CuPt nanoparticles decorated with MoS-NFs were further functionalized; this allowed the constructed sensor to possess more nano- or micro-structures, thereby improving the detection sensitivity. In specific applications, the corresponding bioactive molecules can be flexibly captured. Under optimal conditions, the immunoassay showed a wide linear range from 500 pg mL to 400 ng mL and a low detection limit of 167 pg mL (S/N = 3). This covers the critical value of 70 ng mL, and the results obtained from the analysis of human serum samples were on par with those from the enzyme immunoassay, suggesting significant potential for this new method in daily diagnosis.