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Development of a SERS aptasensor for the determination of L-theanine using a noble metal nanoparticle-magnetic nanospheres composite

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Abstract

An ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) aptamer sensor (aptasensor) using a noble metal nanoparticle-magnetic nanospheres composite was developed for L-theanine detection. It makes use of Fe3O4@Au MNPs and Au@Ag NPs embedded with the Raman reporter 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4MBA). Au@4MBA@Ag NPs modified by aptamer and Fe3O4@Au MNPs modified by cDNA created the aptasensor with the strongest Raman signal of 4MBA through the specific binding of the aptamer. With the preferred binding of L-theanine aptamer to L-theanine, Au@4MBA@Ag NPs were released from Fe3O4@Au MNPs, causing a linear decrease in SERS intensity to achieve the SERS detection of the L-theanine. The SERS peak of 4MBA at 1078 cm−1 was used for quantitative determination. SERS intensity showed a good log-linear relationship within the range 10−10 to 10−6 M of L-theanine. The aptasensor has a high selectivity for L-theanine compared with other twelve tested analytes. Hence, this aptasensor is a promising analytical tool for L-theanine detection. The developed method was applied to the analysis of real samples, demonstrating excellent performance. The comparison with the standard liquid chromatography mass spectrometry method showed an error within 20%.

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Funding

The project was supported by the National Key R&D Plan (No. 2022YFF0606702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 22174133, 12274386, 51832005, 62075203, and 1210042018), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LGF21F050002), the Preeminence Youth Science Funds of Zhejiang Province (No.LR19F050001), and the Key R&D Plan of Zhejiang Province (Nos. 2022C01127 and 2021C05005). Also, the work was greatly supported by NMPA Key Laboratory for POCT Technology Transforming and Quality Control.

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  1. Wei Zhang and De Zhang contributed to this paper equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Wei Zhang, Xiaoming Li, Zhetao Wang & Pei Liang

  2. Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Biology, Ministry of Education, College of Horticulture & Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    De Zhang, Pu Wang, Zhi Yu & Fei Guo

  3. College of Metrology and Measurement Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Qiang Chen

  4. State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, Institute of Nuclear Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310029, China

    Jie Huang

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Zhang, W., Zhang, D., Wang, P. et al. Development of a SERS aptasensor for the determination of L-theanine using a noble metal nanoparticle-magnetic nanospheres composite. Microchim Acta 191, 158 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-024-06245-z

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