A dual amplified gold nanoparticle-based biosensor for ultrasensitive and selective detection of fibrin

Abstract

Ultrasensitive, selective, and non-invasive detection of fibrin in human serum is critical for disease diagnosis. So far, the development of high-performance and ultrasensitive biosensors maintains core challenges for biosensing. Herein, we designed a novel ribbon nanoprobe for ultrasensitive detection of fibrin. The probe contains gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that can not only link with homing peptide Cys-Arg-Glu-Lys-Ala (CREKA) to recognize fibrin but also carry long DNA belts to form G-quadruplex-based DNAzyme, catalyzing the chemiluminescence of luminol-hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) reaction. Combined with the second amplification procedure of rolling circle amplification (RCA), the assay exhibits excellent sensitivity with a detection limit of 0.04 fmol L^-1 fibrin based on the 3-sigma. Furthermore, the biosensor shows high specificity on fibrin in samples because the structure of antibody-fibrin-homing peptide was employed to double recognize fibrin. Altogether, the simple and inexpensive approach may present a great potential for reliable detection of biomarkers.

Keywords: DNAzyme–AuNPs–CREKA ribbon probe; fibrin; gold nanoparticles; homing peptide.