Continuous and Sensitive Acid Phosphatase Assay Based on a Conjugated Polyelectrolyte

We report a novel continuous and sensitive fluorescence turn on assay for ACPs, which consists of a cationic conjugated polyelectrolyte (PPE4+) and a commonly used phosphatase substrate p-nitrophenyl phosphate (pNPP). The kinetics of the ACP catalyzed hydrolysis of the substrate pNPP was monitored by the fluorescence change of PPE4+ and corresponding kinetic parameters were derived to be consistent with the literature reports. The applications of PPE4+/pNPP-based ACP assay in high throughput screening of ACP inhibitors and detection of prostatic acid phosphotase (PAP) in vitro were demonstrated.