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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.
Methods for the rapid and sensitive detection of target analytes are gaining importance in medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring, in the security, occupational health and safety as well as food sectors. Among all the methods employed for rapid tests, lateral flow assays (LFAs) are the most commonly used. However, some drawbacks are that most of these tests either indicate the analyte only indirectly, and in other cases the sensitivity is not high enough.
Keeping in mind these limitations, the use of stimuli-responsive materials for small-molecule sensing relying on chemical signal amplification and utilizing specific interactions between biomolecules such as antibodies and the corresponding analytes are particularly attractive. Such materials can also be incorporated on paper strips for lateral-flow assays in a straightforward manner. These sensing materials comprise mesoporous silica nanoparticles loaded with indicator molecules and containing certain hapten derivative molecules covalently grafted at the surface, which bind to the respective antibody and inhibit the release of a dye as reporter (Scheme 1). In presence of the designated analyte, a displacement of the antibody from the material is observed, allowing the release of dye. Because a large number of indicator molecules can be released when a single analyte molecule binds to an antibody cap, a strong signal amplification is observed.
Considering the modularity, high sensitivity and selectivity of these antibody-gated indicator delivery systems, the presentation discusses general aspects of system design as well as analytical performance and highlights the integration into a lateral-flow assay, showing as an example the determination of the explosives TATP, TNT and PETN with a fluorescence readout, in single-substance and multiplexing modes.
Rapid testing methods for the use directly at apointof need are expected to unfold their true potential especiallywhen offering adequate capabilities for the simultaneousmeasurement of multiple analytes of interest. Considering theunique modularity,high sensitivity,and selectivity of antibody-gated indicator delivery (gAID) systems,amultiplexed assayfor three small-molecule explosives (TATP, TNT,PETN) wasthus developed, allowing to detect the analytes simultaneouslywith asingle test strip at lower ppb concentrations in the liquidphase in < 5min using afluorescence reader or asmartphonefor readout. While the TNT and PETN systems were newlydeveloped here,all the three systems also tolerated harshermatrices than buffered aqueous model solutions.Besidesasingle-track strip,the outstanding modularity of the hybridbiosensor materials in combination with strip-patterningtechnologies allowed us to obtain amultichannel strip inastraightforwardmanner,offering comparable analyticalperformance while allowing to be tailored even more to theusersneed.