Highly Specific Aptamer–Antibody Birecognized Sandwich Module for Ultrasensitive Detection of a Low Molecular Weight Compound

Herein, the aptamer–antibody sandwich module was first introduced to accurately recognize a low molecular weight compound (mycotoxin). Impressively, compared with the large steric hindrance of a traditional dual-antibody module, the aptamer–antibody sandwich with low Gibbs free energy and a low dissociation constant has high recognition efficiency; thus, it could reduce false positives and false negatives caused by a dual-antibody module. As a proof of concept, a sensitive electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensor was constructed for detecting mycotoxin zearalenone (ZEN) based on an aptamer–antibody sandwich as a biological recognition element and porous ZnO nanosheets (Zn NSs) supported Cu nanoclusters (Cu NCs) as the signal transduction element, in which the antibody was modified on the vertex of a tetrahedral DNA nanostructure (TDN) with a rigid structure to increase the kinetics of target recognition for promoting the detection sensitivity. Moreover, the Cu NCs/Zn NSs exhibited an excellent ECL response that was attributed to the aggregation-induced ECL enhancement through electrostatic interactions. The sensing platform achieved trace detection of ZEN with a low detection limit of 0.31 fg/mL, far beyond that of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA, the current rapid detection method) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, the national standard detection method). The strategy has great application potential in food analysis, environmental monitoring, and clinical diagnosis.