A sensitive, colorimetric immunosensor based on Cu-MOFs and HRP for detection of dibutyl phthalate in environmental and food samples

A sensitive and artful colorimetric immunosensor based on horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was designed by labelling metal–organic frameworks (Cu-MOFs) on the second antibody ([email protected]2) as signal amplification for the detection of trace dibutyl phthalate (DBP). In this system, when [email protected]2 was captured by antigen- primary antibody (Ab1) complex, tremendous Cu(II) will be released from Cu-MOFs in the presence of nitric acid (HNO3), and Cu(II) will be further reduced to Cu(I) after the addition of sodium ascorbate (SA), consequently, inhibiting the HRP to catalyse the colorless 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) into blue oxidized TMB (ox TMB). Under the optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) was 1 μg L−1, which was almost 60 times lower than that using a conventional ELISA with the same antibody. In addition, our method showed good accuracy and reproducibility (recoveries of 87.73–103.4%; CV values of 1.46–5.95%) through a spike-recovery analysis. The proposed immunosensor indicated great potential for trace DBP determination from environmental and food samples.