MoS2 Nanosheet-Doped Peptide-Imprinted Polymer-Coated Electrodes for Electrochemical Determination of CRISPR/dCas9-Activated Protein Expression

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are involved in the breakdown of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in disease processes; thus, measurement of MMPs is of potential clinical importance. In this work, a sensitive polymer-coated electrode for sensing MMP-1 was constructed using molecular imprinting of MMP-1 peptides. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets were incorporated into peptide-imprinted electropolymerized poly­(triphenylamine rhodanine-3-acetic acid-co-3,4-ethoxylene dioxythiophene)­s, poly­(TPARA-co-EDOT)­s. Doping peptide-imprinted polymer-based electrochemical sensors with MoS2 nanosheets gives significant enhancement of the response (compared to that without MoS2 doping); this work also demonstrated their useful application in measuring the expression of MMP-1 by a CRISPR/dCas9a system.