Abstract
Among the members of flaviviruses, the Zika virus (ZIKV) remains a potent infectious disease agent, with its associated pandemic prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a global public health concern. Thus, rapid and accurate diagnosis of the ZIKV is needed. In this study, we report a new immunofluorescence biosensor for the detection of nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) of the ZIKV, which operates using the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) signal from plasmonic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to amplify the fluorescence intensity signal of quantum dots (QDs) within an antigen-antibody detection process. The LSPR signal from the AuNPs was used to amplify the fluorescence intensity of the QDs. For ultrasensitive, rapid, and quantitative detection of NS1 of the ZIKV, four different thiol-capped AuNPs were investigated. Our biosensor could detect the ZIKV in a wide concentration range from 10–107 RNA copies/mL, and we found that the limit of detection (LOD) for the ZIKV followed the order Ab-L-cysteine-AuNPs (LOD = 8.2 copies/mL) > Ab-3-mercaptopropionic acid-AuNPs (LOD = 35.0 copies/mL). Immunofluorescence biosensor for NS1 exhibited excellent specificity against other negative control targets and could also detect the ZIKV in human serum.
Highlights
In the mid-20th century, the causative agent, i.e., the Zika virus (ZIKV), of the vector-borne infectious disease known as Zika fever was discovered in the Zika forest of Uganda [1, 2]
Bovine serum albumin (BSA), HAuCl4, N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS), N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-N0-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC), cadmium oxide (CdO), 1-octadecene, tellurium (Te), trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO), Localized surface plasmon resonance-amplified immunofluorescence biosensor for Zika virus detection hexadecylamine (HDA), selenium (Se), trioctylphosphine (TOP) and sulfur (S) were purchased from Sigma Aldrich co. (St Louis, MO, USA).3-mercaptopropionic acid (3-MPA), thioglycolic acid (TGA), L-cysteine (L-cyst) and L-glutathione (GSH) as a signal amplifier were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich co. (St Louis, MO, USA)
A new localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR)-amplified immunofluorescence biosensor for nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) of the ZIKV has been developed with characteristic features of rapidity, ultrasensitivity and specificity for ZIKV detection
Summary
In the mid-20th century, the causative agent, i.e., the Zika virus (ZIKV), of the vector-borne infectious disease known as Zika fever was discovered in the Zika forest of Uganda [1, 2]. It belongs to the family of genus Flavivirus and has a single, positive-stranded RNA genome. Several outbreaks of the ZIKV have been reported since its discovery, with the most recent being in 2015 in South and North America [5].
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