J. Muñoz, A. González-Campo, M. Riba-Moliner, M. Baeza and M. Mas-Torrent

The development of highly sensitive and selective enantiomeric platforms towards the rapid screening of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is nowadays a crucial challenge in several fields related to pharmacology, biomedicine, biotechnology and (bio)sensors. Herein, it is presented a novel, facile and generic methodology focused on exploiting the synergistically and electrocatalytic properties of chiral magnetic-nanobiofluids (mNBFs) with electrochemical enantiobiosensing at a magneto nanocomposite graphene paste electrode (mNC–GPE). The feasibility of this approach has been validated by chirally recognizing tryptophan (TRP) enantiomers as a proof-of-concept. For this aim, a specific chiral mNBF based on an aqueous dispersion of cobalt ferrite loaded with gold nanoparticles carrying a thiolated β-cyclodextrin (β–CD-SH/Au/CoFe₂O₄–NPs) has been synthesized and used towards the supramolecular discrimination of TRP enantiomers at an advanced graphene-paste transducer via cyclic voltammetry. This strategy, which is the first demonstration of applicability of chiral mNBFs for electrochemical enantiorecognition, opens up new approaches into enantio(bio)sensing.

DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2018.01.024
Biosensors and Bioelectronics 105 (2018) 95–102
Read full article here: Chiral magnetic-nanobiofluids for rapid electrochemical screening of enantiomers at a magneto nanocomposite graphene-paste electrode