In cells, a variety of biomolecules are closely related to the occurrence and development of diseases. By detecting mutations and abnormal expression of proteins associated with diseases, it has far-reaching significance in the screening, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. However, the existing conventional ensemble analysis method can only give the average value of multiple molecules and mask the heterogeneity between molecules, and can not deduct the false positive results caused by the inactive target molecules. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve high sensitivity, high selectivity, high throughput and visual detection of target molecules at the single molecule level. Here, a versatile platform for the ECL imaging of single cytokeratin-19 proteins on the surface of MCF-7 cells was achieved by using heterogeneous Ru@SiO2/Au NPs as ECL emitters. In this strategy, SiO2 NPs could immobilize a large amount of Ru(bpy)32+ molecules, and Au NPs decorated on the surface of Ru(bpy)32+@SiO2 NPs could promote the ECL signal of Ru(bpy)32+@SiO2 . To improve the detection flux, an electron multiplying CCD was applied to record the ECL signals generated by multiple target proteins on one image, realizing high-throughput ECL analysis of individual proteins. On the basis of the synergetic amplifying effect, single proteins can be detected and imaged. Moreover, the obtained functional nanoprobes were used to visually profile the expression on the surface of single MCF-7 cells. This work provides a new and simple ECL strategy to visually detect tumor markers at single molecule level, which has great applied potential in the development of various ECL imaging for single desease-related biomarkers detection.

Electrogenerated chemiluminescence imaging of a single protein based on functional nanoprobes of Ru@SiO2 nanoparticles

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.