Apoferritin-Templated Synthesis of Metal Phosphate Nanoparticle Labels for Electrochemical Immunoassay†
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOEs) Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. The research described in this paper was performed at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility sponsored by the DOEs Office of Biological and Environmental Research and located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is operated by Battelle for DOE under contract DE-AC05-76L01830. The authors would like to thank Dr. Chongming Wang for help with transmission electron microscopy imaging and Mr. Wayne Cosby for editing the manuscript.
Graphical Abstract
Targeting proteins: Metal phosphate nanoparticles (see scheme; NHS-biotin=biotinamidohexanoyl-6-amino-hexanoic acid N-hydroxy-succinimide ester) based on an apoferritin template have been synthesized and used as biological labels for electrochemical immunoassay. The template offers a simple and convenient route for the preparation of metallic nanoparticle labels under mild conditions. The assay method is ultrasensitive (detection limit as low as 77 fm); simultaneous detection of multiple protein targets can be performed by using different labels.