Volume 135, Issue 7 e202214419
Forschungsartikel

Quantitative Single-Molecule Electrochemiluminescence Bioassay

Wenxin Zhu

Wenxin Zhu

Laboratory of Experimental Physical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027 China

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Contribution: Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), ​Investigation (lead), Methodology (lead), Validation (equal), Visualization (lead), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Jinrun Dong

Jinrun Dong

Laboratory of Experimental Physical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027 China

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Contribution: Data curation (equal), Formal analysis (equal), ​Investigation (equal), Methodology (equal), Validation (equal)

Search for more papers by this author
Guoxiang Ruan

Guoxiang Ruan

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Key Laboratory of Clinical In Vitro Diagnostic Techniques of Zhejiang Province, Institute of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310003 China

Contribution: Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Resources (lead), Validation (supporting)

Search for more papers by this author
Yuan Zhou

Yuan Zhou

Laboratory of Experimental Physical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027 China

Contribution: ​Investigation (supporting), Validation (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
Prof. Jiandong Feng

Corresponding Author

Prof. Jiandong Feng

Laboratory of Experimental Physical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027 China

Research Center for Quantum Sensing, Research Institute of Intelligent Sensing, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311121 China

Contribution: Conceptualization (lead), Funding acquisition (lead), Methodology (lead), Supervision (lead), Validation (lead), Writing - review & editing (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 12 December 2022

Abstract

A single-molecule electrochemiluminescence bioassay is developed here which allows imaging and direct quantification of single biomolecules. Imaging single biomolecules is realized by localizing the electrochemiluminescence events of the labeled molecules. Such an imaging system allows mapping the spatial distribution of biomolecules with electrochemiluminescence and contains quantitative single-molecule insights. We further quantify biomolecules by spatiotemporally merging the repeated reactions at one molecule site and then counting the clustered molecules. The proposed single-molecule electrochemiluminescence bioassay is used to detect carcinoembryonic antigen, showing a limit of detection of 67 attomole concentration which is 10 000 times better than conventional electrochemiluminescence bioassays. This spatial resolution and sensitivity enable single-molecule electrochemiluminescence bioassay a new toolbox for both specific bioimaging and ultrasensitive quantitative analysis.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.