Ultrasensitive electrochemiluminescence immunoassay for tumor marker based on quantum dots coated carbon nanospheres

In this work, a novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor based on CdTe quantum dots (QDs) coated carbon nanosphere (CN/QDs) for the detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was developed. The carbon nanospheres (CNs) with good monodispersity and uniform structure were synthetized by a hydrothermal method using glucose as raw material. Then QDs functionized CNs were prepared and employed for signal amplification to improve the sensitivity and the detection limit of immunosensor. For this proposed immunosensor, chitosan was firstly deposited on the pretreated indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode surface, which promoted the electron transfer. Subsequently, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were assembled onto chitosan film modified electrode to improve the absorption capacity of antibodies. Then, primary antibodies were immobilized onto the electrode through the reaction between AuNPs and amino. At last bovine serum albumin (BSA) was employed to block the nonspecific binding sites. As a result, a novel ECL immunosensor was obtained on the prepared CN/QDs. The CEA was determined in the range of 0.005–200 ng mL−1, with a low detection limit of 1.2 pg mL−1 (S/N=3). The proposed ECL immunosensor provides a rapid, simple, and sensitive immunoassay protocol for protein detection, which could be applied in more bioanalytical systems.