A Significant Fluorescent Aptamer Sensor Based on Carbon Dots and Graphene Oxide for Highly Selective Detection of Progesterone

Abstract In this paper, a fluorescent aptamer sensor was constructed based on the carbon dots and graphene oxide. This sensor combines the excellent fluorescence performance of carbon dots with the high specificity of aptamers to detect progesterone with high sensitivity and selectivity. In the absence of progesterone, the carbon dots-aptamer system and graphene oxide form a fluorescence resonance energy transfer process(FRET), which quenches the fluorescence of the carbon dots. When progesterone is added, the aptamer specifically binds to progesterone, resulting the fluorescence of the carbon dots is recovered. At optimal conditions, the fluorescence intensity recovered by the carbon dots has a linear relationship with the concentration of progesterone in the range of 0.1-120 nM, and the detection limit is 3.3×10 -11 M. Besides, the sensor has satisfactory detection results of progesterone in milk, indicating that this method has a enormous potential for application in food safety.