Introducing novel amorphous carbon nanoparticles as energy acceptors into a chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer immunoassay system

Abstract

A novel chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) system for competitive immunoassay of biomolecules was developed by using novel amorphous carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) prepared from candle soot as energy acceptors. The CNPs were firstly prepared to bind with the antigen (Ag) for obtaining the nanocomposite CNP–Ag, and this obtained CNP–Ag was then reacted with the horseradish peroxidase-labeled antibody (HRP-Ab) to assemble the CRET system. The luminol catalyzed by HRP serving as the energy donor for CNPs triggered the CRET phenomenon between luminol and CNPs, which led to the chemiluminescence signal decrease. Due to the competitive immunoreaction of the target antigen and the CNP–Ag, a part of the CNP–Ag was replaced from the HRP-Ab, and then resulted in a weaker interaction between luminol and CNPs. Thus the competitive immunoreaction led to a higher chemiluminescence emission. This CNP-based CRET system was successfully applied to detect the human IgG as a model analyte, and a linear range of 10–200 ng mL⁻¹ and a detection limit of 1.9 ng mL⁻¹ (S/N = 3) were obtained. The results for real sample analysis demonstrated its application potential in some important areas such as clinical diagnosis.