Highly sensitive electrochemiluminescent immunoassay for neuron-specific enolase amplified by single-walled carbon nanohorns and enzymatic biocatalytic precipitation

A novel amplified electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunoassay based on single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWCNHs) labels and enzymatic biocatalytic precipitation (BCP) was proposed for the detection of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) for the first time. In this system, the dimercaptosuccinic acid stabilized CdTe (DMSA-CdTe) quantum dots (QDs) as ECL emitter showed excellent ECL behavior and then employed as the NSE antibody (Ab1) immobilization film for the subsequent sandwich-type Ab1-Ag affinity interactions. Improved sensitivity was achieved through using the SWCNHs effectively to expand the amount of secondary antibody (Ab2) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) loading. In addition to the much enhanced steric hindrance, compared with the single HRP-Ab2, the presence of plentiful HRP would further stimulate the BCP onto the electrode surface for signal amplification, concomitant to the BCP products absorption that lowered ECL intensity. As a result of the multisignal amplification in this ECL immunosensor, it possessed excellent analytical performance. The target NSE could be detected from 1 × 10−9 g L−1 to 1 × 10−3 g L−1 with a detection limit of 4.4 × 10−10 g L−1.