Engineering Carbon Nanotube Fiber for Real-Time Quantification of Ascorbic Acid Levels in a Live Rat Model of Alzheimer's Disease

  • Limin Zhang
  • , Fangling Liu
  • , Xuemei Sun
  • , Guang Feng Wei
  • , Yang Tian*
  • , Zhi Pan Liu
  • , Rong Huang
  • , Yanyan Yu
  • , Huisheng Peng
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ascorbic acid (AA) levels are closely correlated with physiological and pathological events in brain diseases, but the mechanism remains unclear, mainly due to the difficulty of accurately analyzing AA levels in live brain. In this study, by engineering tunable defects and oxygen-containing species in carbon nanotubes, a novel aligned carbon nanotube fiber was developed as an accurate microsensor for the ratiometric detection of AA levels in live rat brains with Alzheimer's disease (AD). AA oxidation is greatly facilitated on the fiber surface at a low potential, leading to high sensitivity as well as high selectivity against potential sources of interference in the brain. Additionally, an unexpected, separate peak from the fiber surface remains constant as the AA concentration increases, enabling real-time and ratiometric detection with high accuracy. The results demonstrated that the AA levels were estimated to be 259 ± 6 μM in cortex, 264 ± 20 μM in striatum, and 261 ± 21 μM in hippocampus, respectively, in normal condition. However, the overall AA level was decreased to 210 ± 30 μM in cortex, 182 ± 5 μM in striatum, and 136 ± 20 μM in hippocampus in the rat brain model of AD. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to accurately detect AA concentrations in the brains of live animal model of AD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1831-1837
Number of pages7
JournalAnalytical Chemistry
Volume89
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 Feb 2017

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Engineering Carbon Nanotube Fiber for Real-Time Quantification of Ascorbic Acid Levels in a Live Rat Model of Alzheimer's Disease'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this