Lanthanide-to-quantum dot Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET): Application for immunoassay

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between lanthanide ion complexes (L) acting as donors and luminescent semiconductor quantum dots (QD) acting as acceptors is discussed in the terms of advantages and disadvantages for its application in immunoassay. L-QD-FRET is potentially a powerful tool that can be used to detect and confirm formation of immunocomplexes, but until now it had very limited practical analytical application. Therefore, the main aim of this review is to analyze all possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages of L-QD-FRET in immunoassay applications. Considering L and QD respectively applied as donor and acceptor, the most advantageous properties for analytical purposes are large decay time of L complexes and the high absorption of QD. L complexes' extremely long decay times make it possible to directly detect FRET through enhancement of QDs decay time as a result of energy transfer. Very high QD absorption predetermines extremely large Förster radii (ca. 10 nm), which means that FRET can be utilized for proteins and protein complexes, such as antigen-antibody systems.