Utilization of antibody-nanoparticle conjugates as a tool for immunochemistry with ICP-MS detection

Immunoanalytical techniques are key methods of application in clinical diagnostics, genomics, proteomics and other biochemical and molecular biology disciplines. Most often, they are based on the ability of labeled antibodies to bind specific antigens. It is possible to use a large variety of nanomaterials that are designed, synthesized and adapted to allow highly sensitive detection of advanced immunoassays. Detection can be a highly efficient analytical method of laser ablation followed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), which allows the detection of elemental tags suitably conjugated to antibodies. The aim of this work was to conjugate model anti-mouse antibody on a surface of 10nm and 60nm gold nanoparticles and choose the better one for conjugation experimentally by using dot-blot immunobinding assay followed by LA-ICP-MS. It has been experimentally proven that 10nm gold nanoparticles are more suitable for conjugation with antibodies because of lower non-specific sorption on a membrane.