Au@Ag nanorods based electrochemical immunoassay for immunoglobulin G with signal enhancement using carbon nanofibers-polyamidoamine dendrimer nanocomposite.

Au@Ag nanorods (Au@AgNRs) was utilized to construct a novel sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of immunoglobulin G (IgG). The sensor was prepared by immoblizing capture antibodies on the amine-terminated nanocomposite of carbon nanofibers-polyamidoamine dendrimer (CNFs-PAMAM), whilst the trace tag was prepared by loading anti-human IgG on Au@AgNRs. The "built-in" Ag layer on Au nanorods was characterized by UV-vis extinction spectra, transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The results of cyclic voltammetry indicated that modifying CNFs-PAMAM nanocomposite on glassy carbon electrode enabled 177 times of peak current increase of Ag in the bimetallic nanorods. The peak current was quantitatively related with the concentration of the target protein IgG via the formation of immunocomplex. After the parameter optimization, the oxidative peak current of silver was proportional to the concentration of IgG in a wide linear range of six orders of magnitude with a low detection limit of 0.5 fg mL(-1). Besides, this sensor showed acceptable reproducibility and stability, and thus the strategy reported here has great promise for extension to the other disease biomarkers.