Plasmon-induced Photoreduction System Allows Ultrasensitive Detection of Disease Biomarkers by Silver-Mediated Immunoassay.

Current strategies for the detection of disease biomarkers often require enzymatic assays that may have limited sensitivity due to inferior stability and vulnerable catalytic activity of the enzyme. A new enzyme-free amplification method for identifying suitable biomarkers is necessary to lower the limit of detection and improve many critical diagnosis applications. Here, we presented an enzyme-free amplified plasmonic immunoassay that enhanced the detection sensitivity of disease biomarkers by combining a novel plasmon-induced silver photoreduction system with a silver nanoparticle (AgNP)-linked immunoassay. The key step to achieving ultrasensitivity was to use Ag+ from dissolved AgNPs that control the growth rate of the silver coating on plasmonic nanosensors under visible light illumination. We demonstrated the outstanding sensitivity and robustness of this assay by detecting the disease biomarker alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) at a low concentration of 3.3 fg mL(-1). The detection of AFP was further confirmed in the sera of hepatocellular carcinoma patients.