title: Improving the sensitivity of immunoassay based on MBA-embedded Au@SiO2nanoparticles and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.
abstract: Traditional "sandwich" structure immunoassay is mainly based on the self-assembly of "antibody on solid substrate-antigen-antibody with nanotags" architectures, and the sensitivity of this strategy is critically depended on the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activities and stability of nanotags. Therefore, the rational design and fabrication on the SERS nanotags attracts the common interests to the bio-related detecting and imaging. Herein, silica encapsulated Au with mercaptobenzoic acid (MBA) core-shell nanoparticles (Au-MBA@SiO2) are fabricated instead of the traditional naked Au or Ag nanoparticles for the SERS-based immunoassay on human and mouse IgG antigens. The MBA molecules facilitate the formation of continuous pinhole-free silica shell and are also used as SERS labels. The silica shell is employed to protect MBA labels and to isolate Au core from the ambient solution for blocking the aggregation. This shell also played the similar role to BSA in inhibiting the nonspecific bindings, which allowed the procedures for constructing "sandwich" structures to be simplified. All of these merits of the Au-MBA@SiO2brought the high performance in the related immunoassay. Benefiting from the introduction of silica shell to encapsulate MBA labels, the detection sensitivity was improved by about 1-2 orders of magnitude by comparing with the traditional approach based on naked Au-MBA nanoparticles. This kind of label-embedded core-shell nanoparticles could be developed as the versatile nanotags for the bioanalysis and bioimaging.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
authors.forename: Min-Min
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
authors.forename: Cong-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
authors.forename: Ya-Xian
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China. Electronic address: jlyao@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jian-Lin
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Yao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000941:Antigens / Q000378:metabolism; D001565:Benzoates / Q000737:chemistry*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000379:methods*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D051379:Mice; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine / Q000378:metabolism; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman; D013438:Sulfhydryl Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000941:Antigens; D001565:Benzoates; D013438:Sulfhydryl Compounds; C013594:4-mercaptobenzoate; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine; D006046:Gold; D012822:Silicon Dioxide
keywords: Core-shell nanoparticles (Au-MBA@SiO(2)); Human and mouse IgG; Immunoassay; Mercaptobenzoic acid; Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy