An Online Electrochemical System for Continuous Measurement of Glutamate with Signal Amplification by Enzymatic Substrate Cycling

This study demonstrates a new online electrochemical system (OECS) for continuous monitoring of glutamate by efficiently integrating in vivo microdialysis and selective electrochemical detection with an enhanced sensitivity through enzymatic substrate cycling. We find that the involvement of enzymatic substrate cycling in the biosensing scheme remarkably increases the sensitivity of the OECS toward the measurements of glutamate. Moreover, the OECS demonstrated here is stable, reproducible, and selective and could thus be potentially useful for continuous monitoring of glutamate release in central nervous system. This study essentially offers a new approach to the continuous measurements of cerebral glutamate release, which is believed to find interesting applications in understanding the molecular basis underlying brain functions.