Application of gold nanoparticles produced by laser ablation for immunochromatographic assay labeling

Nanodispersed gold is widely used as a marker in different analytical systems. For such purposes, it is usually obtained by the reduction of salts. This work studied the potential analytical applications of nanodispersed gold obtained by laser ablation because gold produced with this method has no chemical coating. The nanoparticles produced were characterized by transmission electron microscopy and spectrophotometry. The average size of the particles was 24.5 nm. Concentration dependences of antibody immobilization on ablative gold were obtained. With the use of antibody-conjugated nanoparticles, an immunochromatographic system was constructed for the detection of zearalenone mycotoxin. This immunoassay was characterized by a detection limit of 0.1 ng/ml antigen with an assay duration of only 15 min, which is on par with current test systems comprising nanodispersed gold obtained by chemical reduction. The simplicity of ablative dispersing makes this a prospective method for the labeling of various antibodies for analytical use.