Microfluidic-oriented green synthesis of pepsin-doped gold nanoparticles for colorimetric and photothermal dual-readout detection of food hazards

Fuyuan Zhang; Yamei Li; Seid Mahdi Jafari; Yang Liu; Yaxin Sang; Shuo Wang; Xianghong Wang

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139311

Microfluidic-oriented green synthesis of pepsin-doped gold nanoparticles for colorimetric and photothermal dual-readout detection of food hazards

Food Chem. 2024 Apr 9:450:139311. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139311. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Fuyuan Zhang¹, Yamei Li¹, Seid Mahdi Jafari², Yang Liu¹, Yaxin Sang¹, Shuo Wang³, Xianghong Wang⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, China.
² Department of Food Materials and Process Design Engineering, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran; Halal Research Center of IRI, Iran Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: smjafari@gau.ac.ir.
³ College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, China; Medical College, Nankai University, Tianjin 300500, China. Electronic address: wangshuo@nankai.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, China. Electronic address: wangxianghong@hebau.edu.cn.

PMID: 38636377
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139311

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-based immunochromatographic assay has gained popularity as a rapid detection method for food hazards. Synthesizing highly stable AuNPs in a rapid, simple and environmentally friendly manner is a key focus in this field. Here, we present a green microfluidic strategy for the rapid, automated, and size-controllable synthesis of pepsin-doped AuNPs (AuNPs@Pep) by employing glucose-pepsin as a versatile reducing agent and stabilizer. Through combining the colorimetric and photothermal (PoT) properties of AuNPs@Pep, both "signal-off" and "signal-on" formats of microfluidic paper analytical devices (PADs) were developed for detection of a small molecule antibiotic, florfenicol, and an egg allergen, ovalbumin. Compared to the colorimetric mode, a 4-fold and 3-fold improvement in limit of detection was observed in the "signal-off" detection of florfenicol and the "signal-on" detection of ovalbumin, respectively. The results demonstrated the practicality of AuNPs@Pep as a colorimetric/PoT dual-readout probe for immunochromatographic detection of food hazards at different molecular scales.

Keywords: Dual-readout; Food safety; Gold nanoparticle; Green synthesis; Microfluidic chip.