Ultrasensitive electrochemical immunosensor for carbohydrate antigen 72-4 based on dual signal amplification strategy of nanoporous gold and polyaniline-Au asymmetric multicomponent nanoparticles.

A sandwich electrochemical immunosensor is described for carbohydrate antigen 72-4 (CA72-4) based on a dual amplification strategy with nanoporous gold (NPG) film as the sensor platform and polyaniline-Au asymmetric multicomponent nanoparticles (PANi-Au AMNPs) as labels. In this study, the second anti-CA72-4 antibody (Ab2) adsorbed onto the Au of the PANi-Au AMNPs, which could be simply synthesized by interfacial reaction and have many characteristics of polyaniline and Au nanoparticle, such as well-controlled size, high conductivity, biocompatibility and catalysis. NPG film was used as electrode substrate material to fix a large number of antibodies, due to its unique properties: good biocompatibility, high conductivity, large surface area, and stability. The synergetic of NPG film and PANi-Au AMNPs could increase signal response, and significantly improve sensitivity of the immunosensor. The proposed immunosensor exhibited a wide linear range from 2 to 200 U/mL, with a detection limit of 0.10 U/mL CA72-4, good reproducibility, selectivity and stability. This new type of labels for immunosensors may provide many potential applications in the detection of carbohydrate antigen in immunoassays.