Label-free electrochemiluminescence immunosensor for cardiac troponin I using luminol functionalized gold nanoparticles as a sensing platform

A simple and sensitive label-free electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor based on the use of luminol functionalized gold nanoparticles (luminol-AuNPs) as antibody carriers and sensing platform is described for detecting the acute myocardial infarction biomarker cTnI. The ECL immunosensor was fabricated by the assembly of luminol-AuNPs conjugated with biotinylated antibodies against cTnI (biotin-anti-cTnI-luminol-AuNPs) with the streptavidin coated AuNPs (SA-AuNPs) modified Au electrode directly by virtue of the biotin-SA system. The fabricated sensing platform exhibited stable and strong ECL intensity and could be used for the recognition of target antigen. In the presence of cTnI, a decrease in the ECL intensity was observed. Direct detection of the ECL signal changes during antigen-antibody immunoreactions can be used for the quantification of cTnI. The ECL response exhibited a quite wide dynamic range from 1000 ng mL(-1) down to 0.1 ng mL(-1). The proposed method has been successfully applied in the detection of cTnI in real plasma samples. This protocol is simple, fast, sensitive, specific, stable and reliable. This work reveals that the luminol-AuNPs are excellent sensing platforms for the fabrication of simple and sensitive immunosensors. Moreover, the proposed strategy may also be extended for the detection of other biomarkers, which is of great application potential in clinical and pharmaceutical analysis.