Living Cells Directly Growing on a DNA/Mn₃(PO₄)₂‐Immobilized and Vertically Aligned CNT Array as a Free‐Standing Hybrid Film for Highly Sensitive In Situ Detection of Released Superoxide Anions

It is important to detect reactive oxygen species (ROS) in situ for investigation of various critical biological processes, and this is however very challenging because of the limited sensitivity or/and selectivity of existing methods that are mainly based on sensing ROS released by cells with short lifetimes and low concentrations in a culture medium. Here, a new approach is reported to directly grow living cells on DNA/Mn₃(PO₄)₂‐immobilized and vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) array nanostructure as a smart free‐standing hybrid film, of which the DNA/Mn₃(PO₄)₂ and VACNT provide high electroactivity and excellent electron transport, respectively, while the directly grown cell on the nanostructure offers short diffusion distance to reaction sites, thus constructing a highly sensitive in situ method for detection of cancer‐cell‐released ROS under drug stimulations. Compared to the measured ROS released by cells in a culture medium, the detection sensitivity with this constructed hybrid film increases by more than six times, which implies that ROS molecules (superoxide anions) secreted from living cells are immediately captured by this smart structure without diffusion process or with extremely short diffusion distance. This design considerably reduces the time from release to detection of the target molecules, minimizing the potential molecular decay due to the short lifetime or high reactivity.