Exploring new functions of nanomaterials can help facilitate the development of biosensors for the detection of antibiotics. Herein, a new detection modality based on monovalent antigen-induced aggregation (MAA) of immunomagnetic beads (IMBs) was proposed for rapid and label-free detection of enrofloxacin (ENR), which endowed IMBs with the abilities of both sample separation and signal generation. In the presence of ENR, the initially well-dispersed IMBs were aggregated and the degree of aggregation was in a concentration-dependent manner. After exploring the mechanism underlying IMB aggregation and investigating the key parameters affecting it, a label-free biosensing platform was developed for rapid and sensitive detection of ENR. Based on the significant differences in the magnetic separation speed and size between the aggregated and well-dispersed IMBs, two methods were proposed for quantitatively determining ENR, i.e., measuring the turbidity of the IMB supernatant after magnetic separation for a given time and visualizing and calculating the grayscale value of the aggregated IMBs trapped on the surface of a nitrocellulose membrane. A three-dimensional (3D)-printed syringe was designed and fabricated for automatic filtration of IMBs. This immunosensor allowed for sensitive detection of ENR in less than 15 min without any labels. It exhibited a satisfactory limit of detection of 0.79 ng mL-1 and showed the feasibility for ENR detection of spiked chicken meat with recovery rates ranging from 74.8 to 98.3%. The MAA immunosensor can act as a promising tool to detect trace levels of ENR and has the potential to be applied to complex food samples.
Keywords: enrofloxacin detection; immunomagnetic beads; label-free biosensor; monovalent antigen-induced aggregation; poultry meat.