Aptamer-Au NPs conjugates-accumulated methylene blue for the sensitive electrochemical immunoassay of protein

In this paper, we combine the advantages of aptamer, nanomaterial and antibody to design an electrochemical sandwich immunoassay for the ultrasensitive detection of human immunoglobulin E (IgE) by using methylene blue (MB) as electrochemical indicator. The sandwich structure is fabricated by using goat anti-human IgE as capturing probe. Aptamer-Au nanoparticles (NPs) conjugates are used both as a sandwich amplification element as well as an accumulation reagent of MB. Once the aptamer-Au NPs conjugates specifically bind to electrode surface, MB molecules are accumulated on its surface by the specific interaction of MB with G base of aptamer-Au NPs conjugates. Therefore, with the increase of human IgE concentration, more aptamer-Au-NPs conjugates are bound, and thus, more MB molecules are accumulated. A good linear relationship is obtained for the detection of human IgE over a range of 1–10,000 ng/ml with a lowest detection limit of 0.52 ng/ml. In addition, by using BSA, human IgA and human IgM as contrast, the excellent specificity of this sensing system for the detection of human IgE is also demonstrated.