Reagentless pH-based biosensing using a fluorescently-labelled dextran co-entrapped with a hydrolytic enzyme in sol–gel derived nanocomposite films

We report on the development of reagentless fluorescence-based sensing films utilizing hydrolytic enzymes co-entrapped with polymers that are labelled with pH sensitive fluorophores. Aqueous solutions of a hydrophilic enzyme (urease) or a lipophilic enzyme (lipase) containing fluorescein or carboxy-seminaphtharhodafluor-1 (SNARF-1), either free or conjugated to a dextran polymer backbone, were mixed with hydrolyzed alkoxysilane solutions and cast onto planar surfaces to form thin, biologically active sol–gel derived films (ca. 500nm thick). The films also contained various additives, such as methyltrimethoxysilane, dimethyldimethoxysilane, polyethylene glycol or polyvinyl alcohol, to optimize the activity of the entrapped enzymes. The photostability, leaching, pKa and pH response of the entrapped probes were characterized, as was the performance of the entrapped enzymes, and an optimal set of processing conditions was obtained for each different sensing film. In general, the results indicated that SNARF-labelled dextran was the most useful pH sensitive dye owing to insensitivity to leaching and photobleaching. Furthermore, it was observed that the pKa and pH response of this probe was insensitive to preparation conditions. The performance of the co-entrapped enzymes was highly dependent on the type and level of additive, but in all cases, it was possible to obtain active enzymes with good performance characteristics. Reagentless sensing films for urea and glyceryl tributyrate (GTB) are demonstrated based on the detection of enzyme-mediated pH changes from films coated onto planar substrates.