Highly sensitive microcantilever-based immunosensor for the detection of carbofuran in soil and vegetable samples

- The microcantilever sensor for the analysis of carbofuran is first proposed.
- A label-free method for the detection of carbofuran in real samples is presented.
- The proposed sensor presents a high sensitivity.

Microcantilever-based immunosensor is a next-generation electromechanical technique with broad application in biological detection. In this paper, we reported a microcantilever-based immunosensor that quantitatively detect the carbofuran, by using monoclonal antibodies to carbofuran as the receptor molecules. The surface of gold-coated microcantilever was chemically modified by the crosslinking of l-cysteine (l-cys)/glutaraldehyde (GA). The monoclonal antibodies to carbofuran were then immobilized on the side of the microcantilever to fabricate the immunosensor, the mechanical bending induced by antigen-antibody specific binding under an experimental environment. Under the optimized conditions, immunosensor detected carbofuran showed a good linear relationship over the range from 1.0 × 10−7 to 1.0 × 10−3 g/L (R = 0.998), with a detection limit of 0.1 ng/mL. Moreover, the proposed immunosensor exhibited high sensitivity, specificity and good stability and can be successfully applied in the carbofuran determination in soil and vegetable samples with satisfactory results.