Small-volume electrochemical detection of trace nucleic acids using a vibrating electrode system

Nanogram and picogram amounts of nucleic acids can be readily detected by c ombining adsorptive-stripping chronopotentiometry with a small-volume vibra tional-electrode system. Such coupling of microliter sample volumes, an eff ective vibrational mass transport, and sophisticated baseline fitting resul ts in remarkably low (sub-fmol) mass detection limits for DNA and RNA, Thes e improvements, along with the challenges inherent to the small-volume dete ction (e.g., depletion, evaporation), and prospects to small-volume label-f ree hybridization assays, are discussed.