Thrombin Aptamer-Based Biosensors: A Model of the Electrical Response

Abstract

Aptamers are target specific single stranded DNA, RNA or peptide sequences having the ability to bind a variety of proteins, molecules and also ions. Aptasensors, sensors based on aptamers, are at the frontier of sensing technology, mainly in diagnosis and therapy. They appear to be competitive with traditional sensors due to the possibility of detecting and measuring very low concentrations of many different ligands, whose detection and quantification are usually complex, expensive and time-consuming. In this paper we report about a thrombin aptasensor, able to resolve concentrations in a range of 6 orders of magnitude, and provide the microscopic interpretation of its electrical response on the basis of a single macromolecule approach. This investigation has been performed in the framework of an emerging branch of electronics devoted to proteins and living matter, also known as proteotronics.