Gold Nanoparticle Labels and Heterogeneous Immunoassays: The Case for the Inverted Substrate

This paper examines how the difference in the spatial orientation of the capture substrate influences the analytical sensitivity and limits of detection for immunoassays that use gold nanoparticle labels (AuNPs) and rely on diffusion in quiet solution in the antigen capture and labeling steps. Ideally, the accumulation of both reactants should follow a dependence governed by the rate in which diffusion delivers reactants to the capture surface. In other words, the accumulation of reactants should increase with the square root of the incubation time, i.e., t^1/2. The work herein shows, however, that this expectation is only obeyed when the capture substrate is oriented to direct the gravity-induced sedimentation of the AuNP labels away from the substrate. Using an assay for human IgG, the results show that circumventing the sedimentation of the gold nanoparticle labels by substrate inversion enables the dependence of the labeling step on diffusion, reduces nonspecific label adsorption, and improves the estimated detection limit by ∼30×. High-density maps of the signal across the two types of substrates also demonstrate that inversion in the labeling step results in a more uniform distribution of AuNP labels across the surface, which translates to a greater measurement reproducibility. These results, which are supported by model simulations via the Mason-Weaver sedimentation-diffusion equation, and their potential implications when using other nanoparticle labels and related materials in diagnostic tests and other applications, are briefly discussed.