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A signal-off photoelectrochemical sandwich-type immunosensor based on WO3/TiO2 Z-scheme heterojunction

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Abstract

A sandwich “signal-off” type photoelectrochemical (PEC) immunosensor was fabricated based on a composite heterojunction of tungsten oxide/titanium oxide microspheres (WO3/TiO2) acting as signal amplification platform and carbon microspheres loaded by gold nanoparticles (Cs@Au NPs) utilized as the label for detecting antibody. WO3/TiO2 had excellent photoelectric performance, and the results of Mott-Schottky plots, open-circuit voltage, and electron spin resonance spectroscopy indicated that it belonged to the Z-scheme heterojunction transfer mechanism of photogenerated carriers. To achieve the sensitization of PEC immunosensor, Cs@Au NP–labeled immunocomplex can effectively reduce the photocurrent signal. The PEC immunosensors were fabricated under the optimal conditions of 1:1 WO3/TiO2 (molar ratio), 2.0 mg mL−1 WO3/TiO2, and 1.5 mg mL−1 Cs@Au NPs. Through comparison of the detection results of label-free and sandwich-type PEC immunosensors for nucleocapsid (N) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we found that the sensitivity of the sandwich type was 2.53 times the label-free type, and the limit of detection was 0.006 ng mL−1, i.e., 3.17 times lower than the label-free type. This demonstrates that the developed sandwich-type PEC immunosensor will have a brighter application prospect.

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Funding

The work was supported by the State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian (SKLNBC2022-06) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51972173).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian, Beijing, 102205, China

    Fubin Pei, Shasha Feng, Wei Hu, Bing Liu, Xihui Mu & Zhaoyang Tong

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, Jiangsu, China

    Fubin Pei, Shasha Feng, Qingli Hao & Wu Lei

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  1. Fubin Pei
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Pei, F., Feng, S., Hu, W. et al. A signal-off photoelectrochemical sandwich-type immunosensor based on WO3/TiO2 Z-scheme heterojunction. Microchim Acta 190, 384 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-023-05954-1

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