Ratiometric fluorescent immunochromatography for simultaneously detection of two nitrofuran metabolites in seafoods

Competitive immunochromatographic assay (ICA) has been widely used in food safety on-site monitoring. However, traditional competitive ICA relies on the change of single-signal intensity to discriminate the results, leading to limited sensitivity and accuracy of naked-eye visual inspection. In this study, we developed a sensitive ratiometric fluorescent immunochromatographic assay (RFICA) judging results based on the color changes of fluorescence. Two different color quantum dot nanobeads (QBs) were introduced as signal labels for rapid and accurate detection of 3-amino-2-oxazolidinone (AOZ) and semicarbazide (SEM) in seafoods. Under the optimal conditions, the visual detection limit for 2-NPAOZ and 2-NPSEM reached up to 1 and 0.5 ng/mL, which were 5- and 14-fold lower than that of traditional single-signal response fluorescent ICA strips. In addition, the RFICA strips were applied to real samples with acceptable recoveries of 81.33 ∼ 99.23 %. These results demonstrate that the developed RFICA platform possesses considerable potential in the on-site detection.