title: Fe3O4 nanoparticles-enhanced SPR sensing for ultrasensitive sandwich bio-assay.
abstract: Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been receiving increasing attention because of its great potentials in bioseparation. However, the separation products are difficult to be detected by general method due to their extremely small size. Here, we demonstrate that MNPs can greatly enhance the signal of surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy (SPR). Features of MNPs-aptamer conjugates as a powerful amplification reagent for ultrasensitive immunoassay are reported in this work for the first time. In order to evaluate the sensing ability of MNPs-aptamer conjugates as an amplification reagent, a sandwich SPR sensor is constructed by using thrombin as model analyte. Thrombin, captured by immobilized anti-thrombin aptamer on SPR gold film, is sensitively detected by SPR spectroscopy with a lowest detection limit of 0.017 nM after MNPs-aptamer conjugates is used as amplification reagent. At the same time, the excellent selectivity of the present biosensor is also confirmed by using three kinds of proteins (BSA, human IgM and human IgE) as controls. These results confirm that MNPs is a powerful sandwich element and an excellent amplification reagent for SPR based sandwich immunoassay and SPR has a great potential for the detection of MNPs-based bioseparation products.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609, USA.
authors.forename: Jianlong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zanzan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Ahsan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Munir
authors.forename: H Susan
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001681:Biological Assay; D017931:DNA Primers; D005290:Ferric Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D057230:Limit of Detection; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D005290:Ferric Compounds; C000499:ferric oxide