Electrochemical assay of α-glucosidase activity and the inhibitor screening in cell medium

An electrochemical method is established in this work for the assay of α-glucosidase activity and the inhibitor screening through one-step displacement reaction, which can be directly used in cell medium. The displacement reaction can be achieved via strong binding of 4-aminophenyl-α-d-glucopyranoside (pAPG)/magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) to pyrene boric acid (PBA) immobilized on the surface of graphite electrode (GE), compared to that of dopamine (DA)/sliver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Since α-glucosidase can specifically catalyze MNPs/pAPG into MNPs/pAP which has no binding capacity with PBA, the activity of both isolated and membrane bound enzyme can be well evaluated by using this proposed method. Meanwhile, signal amplification can be accomplished via the immobilization of DA at the outer layer of AgNPs, and the accuracy can be strengthened through magnetic separation. Moreover, this method can also be utilized for inhibitor screening not only in the medium containing the enzyme but also in cell medium. With good precision and accuracy, it may be extended to other proteases and their inhibitors as well.