Portable chemiluminescence optical fiber aptamer-based biosensors for analysis of multiple mycotoxins

Multiple mycotoxin contamination in foodstuffs causes significant threat to human health especially considering their synergistic effects. Herein, we present a novel chemiluminescence optical fiber aptamer-based biosensors for ultrasensitive on-site assay of multiplex mycotoxins in food samples. The optical fiber aptasensor is developed based on the specific recognition of single-stranded binding protein (SSB) and mycotoxin aptamers for the selective analysis. Optical fibers are utilized not only as the carrier to immobilize SSB to prepare the sensing region, but also as the transducer of the chemiluminescent emission to detect the sensor response. Multiple-channel fiber sensors are coupled together toward the detector and a compact and portable design of the chemiluminescence optical fiber aptasensor system is proposed, allowing four mycotoxins (AFB1, FB1, OTA or ZEN) to be simultaneously determined from one run without any tedious operation procedure. The optical fiber aptasensor system can perform sensitive analysis with a wide detection range from pg/mL to 10 5 pg/mL and low limit-of-detection in the range of 0.015 pg/mL-0.423 pg/mL for different target mycotoxins. The method is successfully applied for simultaneous and sensitive detection of multiple mycotoxins in infant cereals, showing its practical application in on-site analysis of real food samples. • A portable chemiluminescence optical fiber aptasensor for ultrasensitive on-site assay of mycotoxins. • Multiplexed analysis was achieved by simply combining multiple fibers together. • The entire assaying process of the system is simple without the use of any liquid flow. • The portable system can be extended to sensing various different bio-targets in complex samples.