Novel Electrochemical Sensor Based on Acetylene Black for the Determination of Doxorubicin in Serum Samples

Abstract

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an anthracycline antibiotic, which is clinically used for the chemotherapy of cancers. The monitoring of the concentration of DOX is important for the safety of treatment. In this study, a new glassy carbon electrode (GCE) comprising acetylene black (AB) as a sensitizer was developed for the determination of DOX in human serum. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) provided valuable information on electrode surface changes during fabrication. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was applied to characterize the electrochemical properties of the prepared electrode. Parameters, such as scanning rate, AB volume, concentration, DOX enrichment time and pH, which affected the electrochemical determination of DOX, were optimized in detail. Under optimum conditions, the developed approach exhibited satisfactory selectivity, repeatability, and stability. In addition, the oxidative peak current was linearly proportional to the concentration of DOX in the ranges of 0.01–2.5 μM with a detection limit of 3.006 nM. Finally, the developed method was used for quantitative analysis of spiked human serum samples, and the recovery was satisfactory (from 91.22% to 101.34%). Therefore, the prepared AB/GCE sensor could be applied for the analysis of DOX in real human serum samples.