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Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA detection can enable the early diagnosis of high-risk HPV types responsible for cervical cancer. HPV detection is also essential for investigating the clinical behavior and epidemiology of particular HPV types, characterization of study populations in HPV vaccination trials and monitoring the efficacy of HPV vaccines. In this study, two azaBODIPY dyes (1 and 2) were used as references and were doped into polystyrene particles (PS40), while a short HPV DNA single strand was used as a target molecule and was covalently bound to the silica shell. These particles were employed as optical probes in 1:1 hybridization assays, and their potential applicability as a tool for multiplex assays for the detection of different strands of HPV was evaluated using flow cytometry. A good separation in the fluorescence of the four different voncentrations prepared for each dye was observed. To perform the hybridization assays, HPV18, HPV16, HPV11 and HPV6 single strands were attached to the particles through EDC-mediated coupling. The c-DNA-1-PS40 and c-DNA-2-PS40 particles exhibited low limit of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) values for HPV11, and a narrow detection range was obtained. Multiplexed assay experiments were successfully performed for both particles, and the results proved that c-DNA-1-PS40 could potentially be used as a tool for multiplexing assays and merits further in-depth study in this context.
Microbial contamination of fuels by fungi or bacteria poses risks such as corrosion and fuel system fouling, which can lead to critical problems in refineries and distribution systems and has a significant economic impact at every stage of the process. Many factors have been cited as being responsible for microbial growth, like the presence of water in the storage tanks. In fact, only 1 % water in a storage system is sufficient for the growth of microorganisms like bacteria or yeasts, as well as for the development of fungal biomass at the oil/water interface.
This work presents a rapid test for the accurate determination of genomic DNA from aqueous fuel extracts. The detection is based on the use of polystyrene-mesoporous silica core-shell particles onto which modified fluorescent molecular beacons are covalently grafted. These beacons contain in the hairpin loop a target sequence highly conserved in all bacteria, corresponding to a fragment of the 16S ribosomal RNA subunit. The designed single-stranded molecular beacon contained fluorescein as an internal indicator and a quencher in its proximity when not hybridized. Upon hybridization in presence of the target sequence, the indicator and the quencher are spatially separated, resulting in fluorescence enhancement. To perform the assay the developed particles were deposited on different glass fibre strips to obtain a portable and sensitive rapid test. The assays showed that the presence of genomic DNA extracts from bacteria down to 50–70 μg L–1 induced a fluorescence response. The optical read-out was adapted for on-site monitoring by fitting a 3D-printed case to a conventional smartphone, taking advantages of the sensitivity of the CMOS detector. Such embedded assembly enabled the detection of genomic DNA in aqueous extracts down to the mg L–1 range and represents an interesting step toward on-site monitoring of fuel contamination.
Rapid tests and assays to be used outside of a laboratory for non-trained personal and also at a point of need are becoming increasingly important in areas such as health, food, security, or the environment. Specially on that regard, paper-based sensors are emerging as a new class of devices because they fulfil the requisites of the "World Health Organization" to be ASSURED: affordable, sensitive, specific, user-friendly, rapid and robust, equipment free and deliverable to end-users. The physical, chemical and mechanical properties of cellulose or glass fiber paper in combination with the facility of preparation are making these materials of great interest while looking for cost-efficient and green alternatives for device production technologies. To improve the sensitivity of these systems, a particularly promising approach is the employment of gated indicator delivery systems using preorganized nanoscopic solid structures incorporated on paper strips to produce an exponential amplification of the detectable signal. Having in mind these concepts, several examples of (bio)gated materials incorporated into sensing membranes will be presented for the detection of small organic molecules, having fluorescence or electrochemiluminescence signal as output signal. Compared with fluorescence, it has been demonstrated that the non-optical excitation has significantly reduced the background signal, and with the help of a portable potentiostat in combination with a home-made 3D-printed case fitted onto a smartphone, the sensitivity of the sensing system has been improved tremendously, from the lower ppb range (fluorescence) to the lower ppt range. With this study, the applicability of ECL detection on paper strips in combination with gated indicator-releasing materials has been demonstrated for the first time, presenting a novel synergistic match. Considering the modularity of the system developed, the platform technology potential is obvious, promising expansion of the general concept to many other analytes, applications and scenarios.
The use of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in drug-facilitated sexual assault has increased due to its availability and high solubility in aqueous solutions and alcoholic beverages, necessitating the development of rapid methods for GHB detection. In this respect, portable testing methods for use in the field, based on lateral flow assays (LFAs) and capable of detecting trace concentrations of target analytes, are particularly attractive and hold enormous potential for the detection of illicit drugs. Using this strategy, here we report a rapid, low cost, easy-to-handle strip-based LFA for GHB analysis employing a smartphone for fluorescence readout. At molecular signalling level, the ensemble is based on a Cu2+ complex with a tetradentate ligand and the fluorescent dye coumarin 343, which indicate GHB through an indicator displacement assay (IDA) in aqueous solution. When incorporated in a LFA-based strip test this system shows a detection limit as low as 0.03 μM for GHB in MES buffer solution and is able to detect GHB at concentrations of 0.1 μM in soft drinks and alcoholic beverages in only 1 min.
In this work, the optimization of the immunochemical response of antibody-gated indicator delivery (gAID) systems prepared with mesoporous silica nanoparticles has been studied along various lines of system tailoring, targeting the peroxide-type explosive TATP as an exemplary analyte. The mechanism of detection of these gAID systems relies on a displacement of an antibody “cap” bound to hapten derivatives anchored to the surface of a porous hybrid material, allowing the indicator cargo stored in the mesopores to escape and massively amplify the analyte-related signal. Since our aim was to obtain gAID systems with the best possible response in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and assay time, sera obtained from different immunization boosts were screened, the influence of auxiliary reagents was assessed, structural hapten modification (hapten heterology) was investigated, and various indicator dyes and host materials were tested. Considering that highly selective and sensitive immunological responses are best obtained with high-affinity antibodies which, however, could possess rather slow dissociation constants, leading to slow responses, the main challenge was to optimize the immunochemical recognition system for a rapid response while maintaining a high sensitivity and selectivity. The best performance was observed by grafting a slightly mismatching (heterologous) hapten to the surface of the nanoparticles in combination with high-affinity antibodies as “caps”, yielding for the first time gAID nanomaterials for which the response time could be improved from hours to <5 min. The materials showed favorable detection limits in the lower ppb range and discriminated TATP well against H2O2 and other explosives. Further optimization led to straightforward integration of the materials into a lateral flow assay without further treatment or conditioning of the test strips while still guaranteeing remarkably fast overall assay times.
The roughness as a property of core–shell (CS) microparticles plays a key role in their functionality. Quantitative evaluation of the roughness of CS microparticles is, however, a challenging task with approaches using electron microscopy images being scarce and showing pronounced differences in terms of methodology and results. This work presents a generalized method for the reliable roughness determination of nonplanar specimens such as CS particles from electron microscopic images, the method being robust and reproducible with a high accuracy. It involves a self-written software package (Python) that analyzes the recorded images, extracts corresponding data, and calculates the roughness based on the deviation of the identified contour. Images of single particles are taken by a dual mode scanning electron microscopy (SEM) setup which permits imaging of the same field-of-view of the sample with high resolution and surface sensitive in SE InLens mode as well as in transmission mode (TSEM). Herein, a new type of polystyrene core–iron oxide shell–silica shell particles is developed to serve as a set of lower micrometer-sized study objects with different surface roughness; the analysis of their images by the semiautomatic workflow is demonstrating that the particles’ profile roughness can be quantitatively obtained.
The use of macromolecules and materials immobilized in the detection zone of test strips for indicator capture and focusing in label-free lateral flow assays (LFAs) is described, with emphasis on its future use in low number multiplexing. Several materials such as polyelectrolytes, functionalized mesoporous silica micro- and nanoparticles, chemically modified cellulose or glass fibre (GF) membranes and molecularly imprinted polymer gels coated onto membranes were studied in model assays, before the most promising materials were combined with antibody-gated indicator delivering (gAID) sensor materials. Cellulose, nitrocellulose and GF membranes were used as supports and highly fluorescent dyes of different charge states as model indicators. Combination of the best performing capture materials with gAID systems made it possible to distinctly increase the sensitivity and reduce the measurement uncertainty in the LFA testing of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) in aqueous samples. In addition, dual-plexing of PETN and 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was realized on a single test strip containing two dedicated capture zones.
We report herein the design of a strip-based rapid test utilizing bioinspired hybrid nanomaterials for the in situ and at site detection of the drug scopolamine (SCP) using a smartphone for readout, allowing SCP identification in diluted saliva down to 40 nM in less than 15 min. For this purpose, we prepared a nanosensor based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles loaded with a fluorescent reporter (rhodamine B) and functionalized with bethanechol, a potent agonist of recombinant human muscarinic acetylcholine receptor M2 (M2-AChR). M2-AChR interaction with the anchored bethanechol derivative leads to capping of the pores. The sensing mechanism relies on binding of SCP to M2-AChR resulting in pore opening and delivery of the entrapped rhodamine B reporter. Moreover, the material was incorporated into strips for lateral-flow assays coupled to smartphone readout, giving fast response time, good selectivity, and exceptional sensitivity. In an attempt to a mobile analytical test system for law enforcement services, we have also developed a dualplex lateral flow assay for SCP and 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) also known as the so-called “cannibal drug”.
Die Kombination aus elektrogenerierter Chemilumineszenz (ECL) und Aptamer-gesteuerter Indikatorfreisetzung (gAID) aus magnetischen mesoporösen Silica-Nanopartikeln, die in mit Poly(ethylenglycol) und N-(3-Triethoxysilylpropyl) diethanolamin funktionalisiertes Glasfaserpapier eingebettet sind, ermöglichte die Entwicklung eines Schnelltests, mit dem sich Penicillin direkt in verdünnter Milch bis auf 50 +/- 9 ppt in <5 min nachweisen lässt. Die kovalente Bindung der Aptamer-Kappe an das Siliciumdioxid-Gerüst ermöglichte den Verschluss der Poren durch nicht-kovalente elektrostatische Wechselwirkungen mit Oberflächen-Aminogruppen. Die Bindung von Penicillin führte zu einer Faltung des Aptamers, wodurch der zuvor in das Material geladene ECL-Reporter Ru(bpy)32+ freigesetzt wurde und nach lateralem Fluss von einer Smartphone-Kamera nach elektrochemischer Anregung mit einer in einen 3D-gedruckten Halter eingesetzten Siebdruckelektrode detektiert wird. Der Ansatz ist einfach, generisch und bietet Vorteile hinsichtlich Empfindlichkeit, Messunsicherheit und Robustheit gegenüber konventioneller Fluoreszenz- oder elektrochemischer Detektion, insbesondere für Point-of-Need-Analysen anspruchsvoller Matrices und Analyten im Ultraspurenbereich.
Type-I pyrethroids are frequently used for disinfection purposes on airplanes from and to tropical areas. The WHO (Word Health Organization) defines “disinfection” as the procedure whereby health measures are taken to control or kill the insect vectors of human diseases including dengue, yellow fever and malaria.1 Due to this, a new effective and rapid method for pyrethroids analysis directly in the plane is needed.
To detect type-I pyrethroids, gated materials are constructed for the purpose of finely tuning the movement of a cargo from voids of a mesoporous inorganic support to a solution, in response to a predefined stimulus.2 Antibodies are bound to specific functional groups grafted on the support’s surface with the two-fold aim of closing the mesopores and working as biological receptors for the target compounds.2 A specific opening mechanism, activated selectively in presence of pyrethroids as analytes, is able to control the release of an indicator dye previously loaded inside the inorganic support. As only few molecules of pyrethroids are necessary to open a pore and release a large amount of dyes, the system shows an intrinsic signal amplification quantified as a fluorescence emission intensity.3
Different mesoporous silica supports (from nano- and microparticles to platelets and short fibers) were synthetized, characterized and functionalized following different capping strategies. In this contribution, we will compare the temporal response behaviour of the optimized gated materials to verify if the respective delivery systems are properly closed and how fast they can be opened in presence of the analytes. Our results indicate that the trends of the kinetics observed in solution show a better control of the closing/opening mechanism when the epitope region of the antibody (around 10 nm) properly fits the pore size of the carriers.
Because the incorporation of an antibody-gated dye-delivery system with a conventional test-strip-based lateral-flow assay allows for the detection of analytes down to the ppb level in an easy-to-operate manner and an overall assay time of 2–5 min, which is fast for a biochemical test,3 we carried out first model studies for a lateral flow test assay on membranes, using a smartphone setup for read-out.