Aggregation-Induced Enhanced Electrochemiluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer Biosensor for Ultrasensitive Detection of Carcinoembryonic Antigen Based on Donor–Acceptor Organic Nanoparticles

Aggregation-induced electrochemiluminescence (AIECL) combines the merits of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and electrochemiluminescence (ECL), which has become a research hot spot in recent years. Therefore, we synthesized a novel AIE compound ( Z )-3-(4-(2-butyl-1,3-dioxo-2,3-dihydro-1 H -benzo[de]isoquinolin-6-yl)phenyl)-2-(4-(1,2,2-triphenylvinyl)phenyl)acrylonitrile (TPENI) with a donor-acceptor (D-A) structure, that is, a simple peripheral modification of 4-(2-butyl-1,3-dioxo-2,3-dihydro-1 H -benzo[de]isoquinolin-6-yl) benzaldehyde (NI-CHO) with AIE-active tetraphenylethylene (TPE) to achieve the transition of NI-CHO from aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) to an AIE molecule. When TPENI was in the aggregated state, the luminescence intensity was significantly enhanced due to the TPE structural unit restricting the free rotation of the intramolecular benzene ring, as well as the π-π stacking interactions of the molecules, which was conducive to the preparation of TPENI NPs as ECL materials. Satisfactorily, we found that the ECL intensity of TPENI NPs was increased by about 4.8-fold compared with that of the molecules dispersed in organic solution, and the stability reached about 1000 s. Based on the excellent ECL properties of TPENI NPs, an “on-off-on” ECL biosensor with a wider detection range (1 fg/mL to 100 ng/mL) and a lower detection limit of 0.20 fg/mL (S/N = 3) was proposed for sensitive analysis of a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Overall, this work provided a new approach to the realization of AIECL and laid the foundation for the application of naphthalimide derivatives in ECL.