Two birds with one stone: A universal design and application of signal-on labeled fluorescent/electrochemical dual-signal mode biosensor for the detection of tetracycline residues in tap water, milk and chicken

An ingenious and universal design of fluorescent/electrochemical dual-signal mode sensing platform was constructed for the sensitive, selective and accurate detection of tetracycline (TET). Apt-functionalized nano-magnetic beads (Fe3O4-Apt) as capture probe, Apt-complementary short-chain functionalized fluorescent MOF loaded with methylene blue (MB) (cDNA-MOF-MB) as dual-signal tag were prepared. The sensing platform (Fe3O4-Apt/cDNA-MOF-MB) was formed based on the base complementary pairing of Apt and cDNA. With the help of Apt for target recognition, together with magnetic separation technology, a dual-signal mode biosensor was constructed. The dual-signal mode biosensor exhibited a wide linear concentration range from 1.00 x 10-9 g/mL to 1.00 x 10-4 g/mL with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 1.69 x 10-10 g/mL (fluorescence mode assay) and 1.15 x 10-10 g/mL (electrochemical mode assay). The proposed biosensor had been successfully applied to the determination of TET content in real samples with satisfactory recoveries (94.99-101.30%).