Highly sensitive detection of protein and small molecules based on aptamer-modified electrochemiluminescence nanoprobe

Amplified optical detection of biomolecules using nanoparticle as the carrier has attracted considerable interest in the scientific community. In this study, a promising aptasensor was developed for highly sensitive detection of protein and small molecules based on the construction of aptamer-modified electrochemiluminescence (ECL) nanoprobe. Specifically, thrombin and ATP serve as the examples for detection. By taking advantage of sandwich binding of two affinity aptamers for high specificity, tris-(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium (TBR)-cysteamine loaded in gold nanoparticle (GNP) as barcodes for signal amplification, and micromagnetic particles (MMPs) based ECL technology for rapid detection, a novel assay for biomolecules quantification was developed. The sandwich complex containing targets could be selectively captured by MMPs and then quantified by ECL intensity. We have demonstrated that the detection limits of human thrombin and ATP are 1 pM and 10 pM, respectively, with high specificity. The proposed technology is expected to become a powerful tool for biomolecule analysis.