A nonenzymatic optical immunoassay strategy for detection of Salmonella infection based on blue silica nanoparticles

A novel nonenzymatic optical immunoassay strategy was for the first time designed and utilized for sensitive detection of antibody to Salmonella pullorum and Salmonella gallinarum (S. pullorum and S. gallinarum) in serum. The optical immunoassay strategy was based on blue silica nanoparticles (Blue-SiNps) and magnetic beads (MB). To construct such an optical immunoassay system, the Blue-SiNPs were first synthesized by inverse microemulsion method, characterized by SEM, Zeta potential and FTIR. Two nanostructures including Blue-SiNPs and MB were both functionalized with antibody against S. pullorum and S. gallinarum (anti-PG) without using enzyme labeled antibody. Anti-PG functionalized blue silica nanoparticles (IgG-Blue-SiNps) were used as signal transduction labels, while anti-PG functionalized magnetic beads (IgG-MB) were selected to separate and enrich the final sandwich immune complexes. In the process of detecting negative serum, a sandwich immunocomplex is formed between the IgG-MB and IgG-Blue-SiNPs. With the separation of the immunocomplex using an external magnetic field, the final plaque displayed bright blue color. While in the detection of infected serum, IgG-MB and anti-PG formed sandwich immunocomplexes, IgG-Blue-SiNPs were unable to bind to the limited sites of the antigen, and a light brown plaque was displayed in the bottom of microplate well. Stable results were obtained with an incubation time of 60 min at room temperature, and different colors corresponding to different results can be directly detected with naked eye. The reaction of IgG-Blue-SiNPs with S. pullorum was inhibited by 1:100 dilution of positive chicken serum. Such a simple immunoassay holds great potential as sensitive, selective and point-of-care (POC) tool for diagnosis of other biological molecules.