A multiplex nanoparticle-based bio-barcoded DNA sensor for the simultaneous detection of multiple pathogens

A highly amplified, nanoparticle-based, bio-barcoded electrochemical biosensor for the simultaneous multiple detection of the protective antigen A (pagA) gene (accession number, M22589) of Bacillus anthracis and the insertion element (Iel) gene (accession number, Z83734) of Salmonella enteritidis is reported in this paper. The biosensor system is mainly composed of three nanoparticles: gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), and nanoparticle tracers (NTs, such as PbS and CdS). The AuNPs are coated with the first target-specific DNA probe (1pDNA), which can recognize one end of the target DNA sequence (tDNA), and many NT-terminated bio-barcode ssDNA (bDNA-NT), which act as signal reporter and amplifier. The MNPs are coated with the second target-specific DNA probe (2pDNA) that can recognize the other end of the target gene. After binding the nanoparticles with the target DNA, the following sandwich structure is formed: MNP-2pDNA/tDNA/1pDNA-AuNP-bDNA-NTs. A magnetic field is applied to separate the sandwich structure from the unreacted materials. Because the AuNPs have a large number of nanoparticle tracers per DNA probe binding event, there is substantial amplification. After the nanoparticle tracer is dissolved in 1M nitric acid, the NT(2+) ions are detected by square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) on screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) chips. The results show that the detection limit of this multiplex bio-barcoded DNA sensor are 0.5 ng/mL of the insertion element (Iel) gene of S. enteritidis using CdS, and 50 pg/mL of the pagA gene of B. anthracis using PbS NTs. The nanoparticle-based bio-barcoded DNA sensor has potential application in rapid detection of multiple pathogenic agents in the same sample.