Amplification-Free Dye-Labeled Digital Immunoassay: From Subpicomolar to Attomolar

Signal tags are critical for a successful single-molecule counting assay and digital immunoassay (DIA). Compared to enzymes, nucleic acid fragments, and micro/nanoparticles, dye molecules offer some advantages: they are amplification-free, have minimal steric hindrance, have high disperse uniformity, and have less aggregation. However, existing dye-labeled digital immunoassays have low detection sensitivities, failing to detect neurological biomarkers in the blood. Here, we present an ultrasensitive, amplification-free DIA based on dye labeling and the synergistic sedimentation (SynSed). The dynamic range for GFAP measurement spans from 0.015 to 10 fM with excellent linear relationship (R² > 0.99), covering nearly 3 orders of magnitude. The LOD is as low as 5.7 aM, and the intra- and interbatch variation reach 6.54% and 9.63% respectively. The quantitative results of plasma samples reveal that the median plasma GFAP levels in both Alzheimer's disease (AD, 1.44 pM, p < 0.0001) and Parkinson's disease (PD, 0.67 pM, p < 0.001) patients are significantly higher than that in the healthy controls (0.06 pM), and a notable difference is also observed between the AD and PD patient groups (p < 0.01). This SynSed assisted dye-labeled DIA possesses high sensitivity, stability, and specificity, offering a promise for early neurodegenerative disease screening, therapeutic monitoring, and risk stratification.