Intelligently identifiable membrane immunochip sensor based on Braille-like code for simultaneous multi-veterinary drug detection

Abstract

There may be risk of multiple veterinary drug residues in one food sample; thus, a key challenge for the simultaneous detection of multiple targets was raised in food safety analysis. In this study, a multi-dot membrane immunochip sensor (MIS) based on Braille-like code was proposed for the sensitive, specific, and simultaneous detection of four veterinary drugs: sulfamethazine (SMZ), amantadine (AMD), danfloxacin (DAN), and tylosin (TYL). The 16 types of residual situations for four veterinary drugs can be qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed through the Braille-like code and signal intensity of dots. In addition, an Android application was exploited to intelligently identify the Braille-like code pattern; thus, the residue situations of the corresponding veterinary drugs can be automatically output by a smartphone. The cutoff values were 25 ng/mL for the four veterinary drugs by the naked eye. The limits of detection for SMZ, AMD, DAN, and TYL were calculated as 0.22, 0.058, 0.29, and 0.14 ng/mL, respectively. To verify the performance of this multi-dot MIS, spiked chicken samples with different concentrations were tested, and the results verified the accuracy and precision of this method. The average spiked recoveries were 79.2–116.7%, and the coefficient of variation was 1.6–10.5%. Flexible, versatile and intelligent discriminant methods give this multi-dot MIS great potential to rapidly recognize complex situations in the field of simultaneous detection of analytes.