Analytical Sciences

Enzyme-free Gold-silver Core-shell Nanozyme Immunosensor for the Detection of Haptoglobin

Azureen MOHAMAD, Natasha Ann KEASBERRY, and Minhaz Uddin AHMED

Biosensors and Biotechnology Laboratory, Integrated Science Building, Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong, BE 1410, Brunei Darussalam

Nanoparticles have been widely developed and shown to have intrinsic enzymatic ability, and are used in biosensors. Compared to biological enzymes used in biosensors, which are expensive and tedious to harvest, enzyme-mimic nanoparticles or nanozymes are both more stable and sensitive. An important area in this work is the development of a simple detection principle of immunosensor based on the one-step synthesis of silver nanoparticle seeded onto a gold core. The gold-silver core-shell nanoparticle acts as a peroxidase mimic, which enables them to oxidise 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) with H₂O₂, giving a colourimetric response. Herein, the analytical performance of the nanozyme is exploited to detect haptoglobin as a model analyte in a 96-well plate and measured the colourimetric product using spectrophotometer. The sensitivity of the immunosensor was as low as 100 pg mL⁻¹. The viability of our immunosensor was shown to have good selectivity and satisfactory recovery in real serum samples.

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