Nanoporous Gold for the Miniaturization of In Vivo Electrochemical Aptamer-Based Sensors

Electrochemical aptamer-based sensors enable real-time molecular measurements in the living body. The spatial resolution of these measurements and ability to perform measurements in targeted locations, however, is limited by the length and width of the device's working electrode. Historically, achieving good signal to noise in the complex, noisy in vivo environment has required working electrode lengths of 3-6 mm. To enable sensor miniaturization, here we have enhanced the signaling current obtained for a sensor of given macroscopic dimensions by increasing its surface area. Specifically, we produced nanoporous gold via an electrochemical alloying/dealloying technique to increase the microscopic surface area of our working electrodes by up to 100-fold. Using this approach, we have miniaturized in vivo electrochemical aptamer-based (EAB) sensors (here using sensors against the antibiotic, vancomycin) by a factor of 6 while retaining sensor signal and response times. Conveniently, the fabrication of nanoporous gold is simple, parallelizable, and compatible with both two- and three-dimensional electrode architectures, suggesting that it may be of value to a range of electrochemical biosensor applications.