A novel immunoassay based on the dissociation of immunocomplex and fluorescence quenching by gold nanoparticles

This study reports a novel, simple and sensitive immunoassay using fluorescence quenching caused by gold nanoparticles coated with antibody. The method is based on a non-competitive heterogeneous immunoassay of human IgG conducted by the typical procedure of sandwich immunocomplex formation. Goat anti-human IgG was first adsorbed on polystyrene microwells, and human IgG analyte was captured by the primary antibody and then sandwiched by antibody labeled with gold nanoparticles. The sandwich-type immunocomplex was subsequently dissociated by the mixed solution of sodium hydroxide and trisodium citrate, the solution obtained, which contains gold nanoparticles coated with antibody, was used to quench fluorescence. The fluorescence intensity of fluorescein at 517 nm was inversely proportional to the logarithm of the concentration of human IgG in the dynamic range of 10–5000 ng mL−1 with a detection limit of 4.7 ng mL−1. The electrochemical experiments and the UV–vis measurements were applied to demonstrate whether the immunoglod was dissociated completely and whether the gold nanoparticles aggregated after being dissociated, respectively. The proposed system can be extended to detect target molecules such as other kinds of antigen and DNA strands, and has broad potential applications in disease diagnosis.