ABSTRACT
In present studies, the new optical sensing platform based on optical planar waveguide (OPWG) for sucrose estimation was reported. An evanescent-wave biosensor was designed by using novel agarose-guar gum (AG) biopolymer composite sol-gel with entrapped enzymes (acid invertase (INV) and glucose oxidase (GOD)). Partially purified watermelon invertase isolated from Citrullus vulgaris fruit (specific activity 832 units mg(-1)) in combination with GOD was physically entrapped in AG sol-gel and cladded on the surface of optical planar waveguide. Na(+)-K(+) ion-exchanged glass optical waveguides were prepared and employed for the fabrication of sucrose biosensor. By addressing the enzyme modified waveguide structure with, the optogeometric properties of adsorbed enzyme layer (12 microm) at the sensor solid-liquid interface were studied. The OPWG sensor with short response time (110 s) was characterized using the 0.2M acetate buffer, pH 5.5. The fabricated sucrose sensor showed concentration dependent linear response in the range 1 x 10(-10) to 1 x 10(-6)M of sucrose. Lower limit of detection of this novel AG-INV-GOD cladded OPWG sensor was found to be 2.5 x 10(-11)M sucrose, which indicates that the developed biosensor has higher sensitivity towards sucrose as compared to earlier reported sensors using various transducer systems. Biochips when stored at room temperature, showed high stability for 81 days with 80% retention of original sensitivity. These sucrose sensing biochips showed good operational efficiency for 10 cycles. The proper confinement of acid invertase and glucose oxidase in hydrogel composite was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. The constructed OPWG sensor is versatile, easy to fabricate and can be used for sucrose measurements with very high sensitivity.