Development of Antigen-Immobilized Metallothionein Sensor that Exploits Gold Nanoparticle-Based Enhancement of Signal

An antigen-immobilized indirect-competitive immunosensor that detects metallothionein (MT), a potent biomarker of contamination with heavy metals, was developed exploiting enhancement of signal based on an additional binding of gold nanoparticles to an anti-MT antibody through the biotin-avidin interaction. The sensor was constructed by the immobilization of MT at 1 mg/mL on a 9-MHz quartz crystal microbalance and the concentration of the antibody for competitive reaction was optimized as 10 µg/mL based on the degree of sensor response. At this moment, the control response of the sensor obtained with enhancement of signal was 343.8 Hz and was larger than that without enhancement of signal 2.47 fold. The sensor responses decreased gradually with increasing analyte concentrations, and a linear relationship between analyte concentration and sensor response was acquired in the range of 0.005-1 ng/mL MT in double-logarithmic scales with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.9858. The limit of detection of the present sensor was presumed to be present below 5 pg/mL MT.