Huang Xufang, Wu Jing, Xing Xiaorui, Wang Yi, Wu Changzheng, Li Shijie, Wang Shuo
State Key Laboratory for Food Nutrition and Safety, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Food Science and Health, School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China.
Food Chem. 2025 Apr 15;471:142838. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.142838. Epub 2025 Jan 10.
Heavy metals and mycotoxins are important contaminants in food pollution. Sensitive, reliable, and rapid detection of heavy metals and mycotoxins is crucial for human health. In this work, imidazole-functionalized aggregation-induced emission (AIE) molecule tetra-(4-pyridylphenyl) ethylene (TPPE) was used as a precise and specific probe for Ag detection, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.0318 μM. Meanwhile, a large amount of hydrophobic TPPE molecules were loaded into the amphiphilic block copolymer F127 to form ultrabright fluorescent microspheres (TPPENPs). Lateral flow immunochromatography (LFIA) based on immunoprobe (TPPENPs-Ab) has been successfully developed. The LOD of TPPENPs-LFIA for T-2 toxin was 0.13 μg/L, which was 13.31-fold and 8.62-fold more sensitive than that of gold nanoparticles-based LFIA and ordinary fluorescent microspheres-based LFIA, respectively. TPPENPs-LFIA was employed to detect T-2 toxin in actual grain samples, with a spiked recovery rate of 71.69 - 111.13 %. This assay offers a promising strategy and new idea for multi-target detection.
