Enhanced Photon Emission of Chemiluminescent Luminophore for Ultra-Fast and Semi-Automatic Immunoassay toward Single Molecule Detection

Optical single molecule detection is normally achieved via amplifying the total emission of photons of luminophores and is strongly anticipated to extend the commercialized application of chemiluminescence (CL). To overcome the limited CL photons of molecule luminophores, herein, a nanocrystal (NC) luminophore self-amplified strategy is proposed to repetitively excite CL luminophores for amplifying the total CL photons per luminophore, which can be exploited to perform CL immunoassays (CLIAs) toward single molecule detection via employing KMnO4 as the CL triggering agent and the dual-stabilizer-capped CdTe NCs as the CL luminophore. KMnO4 can oxidize the S element from each stabilizer of mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) and release enough energy to excite the CdTe core for flash CL. The substantial MPA around each CdTe core enables every CdTe luminophore to be repetitively excited and give off amplified total CL photons in a self-enhanced way. The CL of CdTe NCs/KMnO4 can release all photons rapidly, and the collection of all these photons can be utilized to determine the model analyte of thyroid-stimulating hormone antigen (TSH) with a limit of detection of 5 ag/mL (S/N = 3), which is corresponding to about 2–4 TSH molecules in a 20 μL sample. The whole immunologic operating process can be terminated within 6 min. This strategy of repetitively breaking the CL reaction involving chemical bonds within one luminophore is promising for semi-automatic as well as fully automatic single molecule detection and extends the commercialized application of CL immunodiagnosis

Dichroic Mirror-Assisted Electrochemiluminescent Assay for Simultaneously Detecting Wild-type and Mutant p53 with Photomultiplier Tubes

The electrochemical-dependent and unstable intensity of electrochemiluminescence (ECL) makes it difficult to identify ECL in a waveband-resolved way on photomultiplier tube (PMT)-based traditional ECL analyzers. Herein, a dual-color ECL strategy is proposed by transferring ECL to two PMTs in a waveband-resolved way via dichroic mirror, simultaneously detecting wild-type p53 (WTp53) in near-infrared wavebands with CdTe (λ_max = 782 nm) nanocrystals as tag and mutant p53 (MUp53) in eye-visible wavebands with CdSe (λ_max = 554 nm) nanocrystals as tag. The two targets can be color-selectively determined from 10 fM to 100 pM with a limit of detection at 5 fM for MUp53 and from 50 fM to 100 pM with a limit of detection at 10 fM for WTp53, respectively. The dichroic mirror-involved ECL setup is easy to assemble for popularization, which would not only eventually enable PMT-based multiple-color ECL analysis but also make it is possible to directly determine the changed level of tumor suppressors for cancer diagnosis and therapeutic evaluation via one-pot ECL assay

Ultrasensitive Immunoassay Based on Anodic Near-Infrared Electrochemiluminescence from Dual-Stabilizer-Capped CdTe Nanocrystals

A sandwich-typed near-infrared (NIR) electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunoassay was developed with dual-stabilizer-capped CdTe nanocrystals (NCs) as ECL labels and α fetoprotein antigen (AFP) as model protein. The dual-stabilizer-capped NIR CdTe NCs were promising ECL labels because of their NIR ECL emission of 800 nm, low anodic ECL potential of +0.85 V, and high biocompatibity, which can facilitate interference-free and highly sensitive ECL bioassays. Upon the immunorecognition of the immobilized AFP to its antibody labeled with dual-stabilizer-capped CdTe NCs, the proposed immunoassay displayed increasing ECL intensity, leading to a wide calibration range of 10.0 pg/mL to 80.0 ng/mL with a detection limit of 5.0 pg/mL [signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) = 3] without coupling any signal amplification procedures. The NIR ECL immunoassay for real samples displayed very similar results with those of Ru­(bpy)₃²⁺ reagent kit based commercial ECL immunoassay, which not only proved for the efficiency of NIR ECL from dual-stabilizer-capped CdTe NCs but also paved the road for development of novel ECL emitters and corresponding reagent kits

A Monochromatic Electrochemiluminescence Sensing Strategy for Dopamine with Dual-Stabilizers-Capped CdSe Quantum Dots as Emitters

A promising electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensing strategy was proposed with dual-stabilizers-capped CdSe quantum dots (QDs) as ECL emitters. The dual-stabilizers-capped CdSe QDs were covalently immobilized onto p-aminobenzoic acid modified glass carbon electrode with ethylenediamine as a link molecule. This strategy can preserve the completely passivated surface states of dual-stabilizers-capped CdSe QDs, so that the sensor demonstrated eye-visible greenish, band gap engineering and monochromatic ECL emission at 546 nm with a fwhm of 35 nm. Moreover, the proposed sensor could accurately quantify dopamine from 10.0 nM to 3.0 μM with a detection limit of 3.0 nM in practical drug, human urine, and cerebrospinal fluid samples without any signal amplification techniques. This strategy is promising for developing ECL sensors with high sensitivity and spectral selectivity

Molecular-Counting-Free and Electrochemiluminescent Single-Molecule Immunoassay with Dual-Stabilizers-Capped CdSe Nanocrystals as Labels

Biorelated single-molecule detection (SMD) has been achieved typically by imaging the redox fluorescent labels and then determining each label one by one. Herein, we demonstrated that the capping agents (i.e., mercaptopropionic acid and sodium hexametaphosphate) can facilitate the electrochemical involved hole (or electron) injecting process and improve the stability of the dual-stabilizers-capped CdSe nanocrystals (NCs), so that the CdSe NCs could be electrochemically and repeatedly inspired to excited states by giving off electrochemiluminescence (ECL) in a cyclic pattern. With the CdSe NCs as ECL label and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) as target molecule, a convenient single-molecule immunoassay was proposed by simply detecting the ECL intensity of the dual-stabilizers-capped CdSe NCs in a sandwich-typed immune complex. The limit of detection is 0.10 fg/mL at S/N = 3, which corresponds to about 6–8 CEA molecules in 20 μL of serum sample. Importantly, the ECL spectra of both CdSe NCs and its conjugate with probe antigen in the immune complex were almost identical to the photoluminescence spectrum of bare CdSe NCs, indicating that all emissions were originated from the same excited species. The molecular-counting-free and ECL-based SMD might be a promising alternative to the fluorescent SMD

Low-Triggering-Potential Electrochemiluminescence from Surface-Confined CuInS₂@ZnS Nanocrystals and their Biosensing Applications

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of low triggering potential is strongly anticipated for ECL assays with less inherent electrochemical interference and improved long-term stability of the working electrode. Herein, effects of the thiol capping agents and the states of luminophores, i.e., the thiol-capped CuInS2@ZnS nanocrystals (CuInS2@ZnS-Thiol), on the ECL triggering potential of CuInS2@ZnS-Thiol/N2H4·H2O were explored on the Au working electrode. The thiol capping agent of glutathione (GSH) not only enabled CuInS2@ZnS-Thiol/N2H4·H2O with the stronger oxidative-reduction ECL than other thiol capping agents but also demonstrated the largest shift for the ECL triggering potential of CuInS2@ZnS-Thiol/N2H4·H2O upon changing the luminophores from the monodispersed state to the surface-confined state. CuInS2@ZnS-GSH/N2H4·H2O exhibited an efficient oxidative-reduction ECL around 0.78 V (vs Ag/AgCl) with CuInS2@ZnS-GSH of the monodispersed state. Upon employing CuInS2@ZnS-GSH as the ECL tag and immobilizing them onto the Au working electrode, the oxidative-reduction ECL of CuInS2@ZnS-GSH/N2H4·H2O was lowered to 0.32 V (vs Ag/AgCl), which was about 0.88 V lower than that of traditional Ru­(bpy)32+/TPrA (typically ∼1.2 V, vs Ag/AgCl). The ECL of the CuInS2@ZnS-GSH/N2H4·H2O system with the luminophore of both monodispersed and surface-confined states was spectrally identical to each other, indicating that this surface-confining strategy exhibited negligible effect on the excited state for the ECL of CuInS2@ZnS-GSH. A surface-confined ECL sensor around 0.32 V was fabricated with CuInS2@ZnS-GSH as a luminophore, which could sensitively and selectively determine the K-RAS gene from 1 to 500 pM with a limit of detection at 0.5 pmol L–1 (S/N = 3)

Surface-Defect-Involved and Eye-Visible Electrochemiluminescence of Unary Copper Nanoclusters for Immunoassay

A single-stabilizer-capped strategy is proposed for achieving highly efficient and surface-defect-involved electrochemiluminescence (ECL) from unary copper nanoclusters (NCs) via employing l-cysteine (Cys) as a capping agent of luminophore. The Cys-capped CuNCs (Cys-CuNCs) can be electrochemically injected with valence band (VB) holes and exhibit eye-touchable ECL processes around +0.95 and +1.15 V upon employing TPrA as a coreactant. Both accumulated ECL spectra and spooling ECL spectra demonstrated that the two ECL processes are of the same single waveband and spectrally identical to each other with the same maximum emission wavelength of 640 nm. Promisingly, ECL of the Cys-CuNCs/TPrA system is obviously red-shifted for ∼150 nm to PL of Cys-CuNCs, indicating that the bandgap-engineered routes for ECLs of Cys-CuNCs are completely blocked. The oxidative-reduction ECL process of the Cys-CuNCs/TPrA system is a kind of highly efficient, eye-visible, and single-color emission in surface-defect-involved route. The capping agent of Cys can enable the CuNCs/TPrA system with a stronger ECL than other thiol capping agents, so that Cys-CuNCs are utilized as ECL tags for sensitive and selective immunoassays, which exhibit a wide linear response range from 0.05 pg/mL to 0.5 ng/mL and a limit of detection of 0.01 pg/mL (S/N = 3) with carcinoembryonic antigen as the analyte. Moreover, both the luminophore Cys-CuNCs and conjugates Ab2-CuNCs can be safely stored in aqueous media without any protector, which is promising for the evolution and clinic application of metal NC ECL in the surface-defect-involved route

Spectrum-Based Electrochemiluminescent Immunoassay with Ternary CdZnSe Nanocrystals as Labels

Conventional electrochemiluminescence (ECL) research has been performed by detecting the total photons (i.e., the ECL intensity). Herein, systematic spectral exploration on the ECL of dual-stabilizers-capped ternary CdZnSe nanocrystals (NCs) and its sensing application were carried out on a homemade ECL spectral acquiring system. The ternary CdZnSe NCs could be repeatedly injected with electrons via some electrochemical ways and then result in strong cathodic ECL with the coupling of ammonium persulfate. ECL spectrum of the CdZnSe NCs was almost identical to corresponding photoluminescence spectrum, indicating that the excited states of CdZnSe NCs in ECL were essentially the same as those in photoluminescence. Importantly, after being labeled to the probe antibody (Ab₂) of α-fetal protein (AFP) antigen, the ternary NCs in the Ab₂|NCs conjugates could preserve their ECL spectrum very well. A spectrum-based ECL immunoassay was consequently proposed with the CdZnSe NCs as ECL tags and AFP as target molecules. The limit of detection is 0.010 pg/mL, with a signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of 3, indicating a sensitive ECL sensing strategy that was different from the conventional ones. This work might open a pathway to the spectrally resolved ECL analysis with even-higher S/N ratios than the fluorescent analysis