title: Community Sewage Sensors towards Evaluation of Drug Use Trends: Detection of Cocaine in Wastewater with DNA-Directed Immobilization Aptamer Sensors.
abstract: Illicit drug use has a global concern and effective monitoring and interventions are highly required to combat drug abuse. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an innovative and cost-effective approach to evaluate community-wide drug use trends, compared to traditional population surveys. Here we report for the first time, a novel quantitative community sewage sensor (namely DNA-directed immobilization of aptamer sensors, DDIAS) for rapid and cost-effective estimation of cocaine use trends via WBE. Thiolated single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) probe was hybridized with aptamer ssDNA in solution, followed by co-immobilization with 6-mercapto-hexane onto the gold electrodes to control the surface density to effectively bind with cocaine. DDIAS was optimized to detect cocaine at as low as 10 nM with a dynamic range from 10 nM to 5 μM, which were further employed for the quantification of cocaine in wastewater samples collected from a wastewater treatment plant in seven consecutive days. The concentration pattern of the sampling week is comparable with that from mass spectrometry. Our results demonstrate that the developed DDIAS can be used as community sewage sensors for rapid and cost-effective evaluation of drug use trends, and potentially implemented as a powerful tool for on-site and real-time monitoring of wastewater by un-skilled personnel.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.|Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Zhugen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Castrignanò
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Estrela
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Christopher G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kasprzyk-Hordern
mesh_terms: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D003042:Cocaine / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000737:chemistry; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D061925:Immobilized Nucleic Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D012722:Sewage / Q000737:chemistry; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide; D003042:Cocaine; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D061925:Immobilized Nucleic Acids; D012722:Sewage; D062065:Wastewater