Magnetic Nanoparticles-Enhanced SPR Sensing for Ultrasensitive Sandwich Immunoassay

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been receiving increasing attention because of its great potentials in separation. However, the separation products are difficult to be detected by general method due to their small size. Here, we demonstrate magnetic nanoparticles could greatly enhance the signal of surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy (SPR). Features of MNPs-aptamer conjugates as a powerful amplification reagent for ultrasensitive immunoassay are explored for the first time. In order to evaluate the sensing ability of MNPs-aptamer conjugates as an amplification reagent, a sandwich SPR sensor is constructed by using thrombin as model analyte. Thrombin, captured by immobilized anti-thrombin aaptamer on SPR gold film, is sensitively detected by SPR spectroscopy with a lowest detection limit of 10 ng/ml after MNPs-aptamer conjugates is used as amplification reagent. At the same time, the excellent selectivity of the present biosensor is also confirmed by using three kinds of proteins (BSA, human IgM and human IgA) as controls. These results confirm that MNPs is a powerful sandwich element and an excellent amplification reagent for SPR based sandwich immunoassay and SPR has a great potential for the detection of magnetic nanoparticles-based separation products.