A novel electrochemical aptasensor for ochratoxin a sensing in spiked food using strand-displacement polymerase reaction

Herein, an aptasensor is presented for electrochemical determination of ochratoxin A (OTA) based on nontarget-triggered production of rolling circular amplification (RCA). The surface of gold electrode is modified with thiolated complementary strand of aptamer (CS) as both capture probe and primer and OTA aptamer (Apt) as both sensing molecule and padlock probe (PLP). Following the addition of OTA, Apt/OTA conjugate is formed and detached from the electrode surface. Therefore, no RCA is produced after incubation of the modified electrode with T4 DNA ligase and phi29 DNA polymerase and a sharp current signal occurs. The analytical response ranged from 30 pM to 120 nM with detection limit of 5 pM. The designed aptasensor showed superior analytical performance in comparison with other approaches for OTA detection. Also, the approach exhibited good performance for OTA determination in spiked grape juice samples. The technique presented in this study, can be applied to develop sensors for detecting different toxins by replacing the relevant aptamers and complementary strands.