Triethanolamine-Modified Gold Nanoparticles Synthesized by a One-Pot Method and Their Application in Electrochemiluminescent Immunoassy.

In many electrochemiluminescent (ECL) systems, coreactants play crucial roles in the redox-induced light emission process at the electrode surface. In this work, a novel and environment-friendly nanoplatform for ECL immunosensing enabled by triethanolamine (TEOA)-modified gold nanoparticles (TEOA@AuNPs) is reported. The monodisperse TEOA@AuNPs are fabricated by one-pot synthesis using TEOA as both reducing and stabilizing agent. Then the TEOA@AuNPs-modified electrode not only acted as coreactant for Ru(bpy)32+ ECL system but also provided a carrier for antibody 1 to form label-free immunosensor through an interaction between antigen and antibody. The unique structure of the TEOA@AuNPs loaded a large amount of coreactant of Ru(bpy)32+, which shortened the electron-transfer distance from the AuNPs surface to the appended TEOA molecules, thereby greatly enhancing the ECL efficiency and amplifying the ECL signal. In addition, Ru(bpy)32+-doped silica (RuSiO2) nanoparticles and antibody 2 were combined to form a composite for labels and a sandwich-type ECL immunosensor has been constructed. The possible mechanism of those ECL systems have also been proposed and confirmed by the EC-MS hyphenated technique. The human cardiopathy biomarker, cardiac troponin I (cTnI), was detected in a wide linear concentration range and the limit of detection (LOD) was 34 or 5.5 fg mL-1 by using the proposed label-free or labeling ECL immunoassay method.