Horseradish peroxidase-screen printed biosensors for determination of Ochratoxin A

This work summarizes the manufacturing procedure of Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) based biosensors for the determination of the mycotoxin Ochratoxin A (OTA). The biosensors have been fabricated using the single technology of screen-printing. That is to say, an HRP containing ink has been directly screen-printed onto carbon electrodes, which offers a higher rapidity and simplicity in the manufacturing process of biosensors for OTA determination. The formal redox potential of the Fe(III/II) moiety of HRP has been used to demonstrate the effective loading of enzyme into the ink. The chronoamperometric oxidation current registered has been successfully related to the concentration of OTA in solution from different samples, including beer ones. Under the optimum conditions of the experimental variables, precision in terms of reproducibility and repeatability has been calculated in the concentration range from 23.85 to 203.28 nM. A relative standard deviation for the slopes of 10% (n = 4) was obtained for reproducibility. In the case of repeatability, the biosensor retained a 30% of the initial sensitivity after the third calibration. The average capability of detection for 0.05% probabilities of false positive and negative was 26.77 +/- 3.61 nM (alpha = 0.05 and beta=0.05, n = 3). (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.