Analysis of interactions between proteins and small-molecule drugs by a biosensor based on a graphene field-effect transistor

Abstract We synthesized large-area single-crystal graphene sheets to use them in biosensors based on field-effect transistors (FET) for quantitative analysis of interaction kinetics and affinity between the imatinib drug and its target protein kinase Abl1. The G-FET biosensor showed an excellent performance and recognized imatinib at as low as 15.5 fM. The biosensor also showed a linear response to the logarithm of imatinib concentration in the 0.1 pM-10 μM range. This graphene-based FET biosensor (G-FET) was also applied to quantify Abl1 Y253 F mutation and Abl1 dependency on Mg2+ to bind to imatinib in real-time. Results demonstrated in this work clearly showed that the novel G-FET biosensors are very promising to analyze interactions between proteins and low molecular weight drugs.