Avoiding the self-nucleation interference: a pH-regulated gold in situ growth strategy to enable ultrasensitive...

Background: Gold nanoparticle-based immunochromatographic assay (AuNP-ICA) has insufficient sensitivity due to its inherent colorimetric signal intensity and low capture efficiency of AuNPs. The metal in situ growth is a common strategy to enhance the sensitivity of AuNP-ICA due to its superior signal amplification potential and simple operation. However, the detection distortion caused by metal self-nucleation during the growth process can seriously affect the accuracy and reproducibility of the strips. Methods: We present a pH-regulated gold in situ growth (GISG) strategy to amplify the colorimetric signal and demonstrate its application in improving the performance of traditional AuNP-ICA. The controllable growth signal amplification is achieved by lowering the pH of the growth solution to weaken the reducibility of hydroxylamine (HA), thus urging the crystallization and growth of Au³⁺ on the AuNP surface instead of free reduction and self-nucleation. In addition, the mechanism of pH regulation on HA reducibility is elucidated by introducing an electron-donating or electron-withdrawing group to affect the electron density of hydroxyl group. Results: The proposed GISG strategy shows improved sensitivity, low background, robust operation, and good reproducibility. The LOD values of the designed GISG-amplified AuNP-ICA are as low as 0.0198 ng mL^-1 for hepatitis B surface antigen and 0.0125 ng mL^-1 for HIV-1 capsid p24 antigen, which are lower by about 500- and 70-fold, respectively, than those of the unamplified AuNP-ICA. Conclusions: This method is extended to enable ultrasensitive and rapid diagnosis of viral infections, and has potential as a general signal amplification platform to redefine immunochromatographic diagnostics.