An Electrochemical Immunobiosensor for Direct Detection of Veterinary Drug Residues in Undiluted Complex Matrices

Chemical and biological assessments of environmental mixtures: A review of current trends, advances, and future perspectives

Considering the chemical complexity and toxicity data gaps of environmental mixtures, most studies evaluate the chemical risk individually. However, humans are usually exposed to a cocktail of chemicals in real life. Mixture health assessment remains to be a research area having significant knowledge gaps. Characterization of chemical composition and bioactivity/toxicity are the two critical aspects of mixture health assessments. This review seeks to introduce the recent progress and tools for the chemical and biological characterization of environmental mixtures. The state-of-the-art techniques include the sampling, extraction, rapid detection methods, and the in vitro, in vivo, and in silico approaches to generate the toxicity data of an environmental mixture. Application of these novel methods, or new approach methodologies (NAMs), has increased the throughput of generating chemical and toxicity data for mixtures and thus refined the mixture health assessment. Combined with computational methods, the chemical and biological information would shed light on identifying the bioactive/toxic components in an environmental mixture.

Development of a new dual electrochemical immunosensor for a rapid and sensitive detection of enrofloxacin in meat samples

A novel dual electrochemical immunosensor was fabricated for the rapid and sensitive detection of enrofloxacin (EF) antibiotic in meat. Anti-quinolone antibody was immobilized onto screen-printed dual carbon electrodes via carbodiimide coupling. A new electrochemical probe was synthesized by conjugating difloxacin and aminoferrocene, whose oxidation was measured at + 0.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl by differential pulse voltammetry. The detection principle was based on the competitive binding of this conjugate and free EF on immobilized antibodies. The proposed immunosensor allowed detection of EF at concentrations ranging from 0.005 µg.mL^-1 to 0.01 µg.mL^-1 with a detection limit of 0.003 µg.mL^-1. The immunosensor was stable for at least 1 month at 4 °C and displayed a good specificity for other fluoroquinolones. The new dual electrode design offered an improved accuracy as one electrode was used as negative control. The efficiency of the sensor and the adequacy of the extraction process were finally validated by detecting EF in different meat samples.

Covalent organic framework-based electrochemical aptasensors for the ultrasensitive detection of antibiotics

We designed and synthesized a novel covalent organic framework (COF) by condensation polymerization of 1,3,6,8-tetrakis(4-formylphenyl)pyrene and melamine through imine bonds (represented by Py-M-COF). The basic characterizations revealed that the Py-M-COF not only exhibited an extended π-conjugation framework, a large specific surface area (495.5 m² g^-1), big pore cavities, and nanosheet-like structure but also possessed rich functional groups, such as C˭C, C˭N, C˭O, and NH₂. These features endowed the Py-M-COF with high charge carrier mobility, further improving the strong immobilization of DNA aptamer strands via π-π stacking interaction and electrostatic interaction. As such, the Py-M-COF-based electrochemical aptasensors are ultrasensitive in detecting different antibiotics, including enrofloxacin (ENR) and ampicillin (AMP), yielding extremely low detection limits of 6.07 and 0.04 fg mL^-1 (S/N = 3) toward ENR and AMP, respectively, along with other excellent sensing performances. This biosensing platform based on Py-M-COF has potential applications for the sensitive detection of antibiotics or other analytes by replacing the corresponding aptamers.

Highly-sensitive detection of eight typical fluoroquinolone antibiotics by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectroscopy coupled with immunoaffinity extraction

An off-line procedure, immunoaffinity extraction (IAE), followed by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectroscopy (CE-MS) has been developed for the simultaneous determination of eight typical FQs in environmental water samples.

Development and Validation of a Reproducible and Label-Free Surface Plasmon Resonance Immunosensor for Enrofloxacin Detection in Animal-Derived Foods

This study describes the development of a reproducible and label-free surface plasmon resonance (SPR) immunosensor and its application in the detection of harmful enrofloxacin (ENRO) in animal-derived foods. The experimental parameters for the immunosensor construction and regeneration, including the pH value (4.5), concentration for coating ENRO-ovalbumin conjugate (ENRO-OVA) (100 μg·mL⁻¹), concentration of anti-ENRO antibody (80 nM) and regeneration solution (0.1 mol·L⁻¹ HCl) were evaluated in detail. With the optimized parameters, the proposed SPR immunosensor obtained a good linear response to ENRO with high sensitivity (IC₅₀: 3.8 ng·mL⁻¹) and low detection limit (IC₁₅: 1.2 ng·mL⁻¹). The proposed SPR immunosensor was further validated to have favorable performances for ENRO residue detection in typical animal-derived foods after a simple matrix pretreatment procedure, as well as acceptable accuracy (recovery: 84.3–96.6%), precision (relative standard deviation (n = 3): 1.8–4.6%), and sensitivity (IC₁₅ ≤ 8.4 ng·mL⁻¹). Each SPR chip for analysis can be reused at least 100 times with good stability and the analysis cycle containing the steps of sample uploading/chip regeneration/baseline recovery can be completed within 6 min (one cycle) and auto-operated by a predetermined program. These results demonstrated that the proposed SPR immunosensor provided an effective strategy for accurate, sensitive, and rapid detection for ENRO residue, which has great potential for routine analysis of large numbers of samples for measuring different types of compounds.

Effects of Surface Epitope Coverage on the Sensitivity of Displacement Assays that Employ Modified Nanoparticles: Using Bisphenol A as a Model Analyte

With the ever-increasing use of nanoparticles in immunosensors, a fundamental study on the effect of epitope density is presented herein, with a small molecule epitope, on the performance of the displacement assay format in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Thiolated bisphenol A (BPA) functionalized gold nanoparticles (cysBPAv-AuNPs) and specific anti-BPA antibodies are employed for this purpose. It is shown that the displacement of cysBPAv-AuNPs bound to the immobilized antibodies was influenced by both the avidity of bound cysBPAv-AuNPs and the concentration of free BPA to displace it. The importance of surface epitope density was that it changed the number of epitopes in close proximity to the antibody-binding site. This then influenced the avidity of cysBPAv-AuNPs bound to the immobilized antibody. Furthermore, the molar epitope concentration in an assay appears to affect the degree of antibody binding site saturation. Controlling surface epitope density of the functionalized nanoparticles and molar epitope concentration in an assay leads to a decrease of the concentration of free BPA required to displace the bound cysBPAv-AuNP, and hence better assay performance with regards to the D50 value and dynamic range in the displacement assay.

Nanobiosensors in diagnostics

Medical diagnosis has been greatly improved thanks to the development of new techniques capable of performing very sensitive detection and quantifying certain parameters. These parameters can be correlated with the presence of specific molecules and their quantity. Unfortunately, these techniques are demanding, expensive, and often complicated. On the other side, progress in other fields of science and technology has contributed to the rapid growth of nanotechnology. Although being an emerging discipline, nanotechnology has raised huge interest and expectations. Most of the enthusiasm comes from new possibilities and properties of nanomaterials. Biosensors (simple, robust, sensitive, cost-effective) combined with nanomaterials, also called nanobiosensors, are serving as bridge between advanced detection/diagnostics and daily/routine tests. Here we review some of the latest applications of nanobiosensors in diagnostics field.

Ruthenium(ii) complexes containing functionalised β-diketonate ligands: developing a ferrocene mimic for biosensing applications

A novel ruthenium(ii) complex with electrochemical behaviour very similar to that of ferrocene was identified by variation of both the number and electronic demand of the substituted β-diketonato ligands bound to the metal centre.

The impact of antibody/epitope affinity strength on the sensitivity of electrochemical immunosensors for detecting small molecules

A displacement immunoassay involves having a labelled analogue of the analyte (the epitope) already bound to the antibody. The presence of the analyte causes a competition for antibodies, and some of the antibodies dissociates from the epitope so that it can bind with the analyte. Herein, the influence of the affinity of the surface-bound epitope for the antibody on the sensitivity and selectivity of a displacement immunosensor is explored both theoretically and experimentally. An electrochemical immunosensor described previously, where the dissociation of antibodies from an electrode surface causes an increase in current from surface-bound ferrocene species, is used for this purpose. As expected, the ease and effectiveness of the bound antibody being displaced is inversely related to the affinity of the antibody to the surface-bound epitope relative to the analyte in solution as expected. However, if the affinity constant is too low, selectivity and/or sensitivity are compromised. Experimental results are qualitatively compared with a simple mass-action model.

Biosensors: sense and sensibility

This review is based on the Theophilus Redwood Medal and Award lectures, delivered to Royal Society of Chemistry meetings in the UK and Ireland in 2012, and presents a personal overview of the field of biosensors. The biosensors industry is now worth billions of United States dollars, the topic attracts the attention of national initiatives across the world and tens of thousands of papers have been published in the area. This plethora of information is condensed into a concise account of the key achievements to date. The reasons for success are examined, some of the more exciting emerging technologies are highlighted and the author speculates on the importance of biosensors as a ubiquitous technology of the future for health and the maintenance of wellbeing.