Ultrasensitive point-of-care biochemical sensor based on metal-AIEgen frameworks.

Zhang, Jiangjiang; Li, Ying; Chai, Fengli; Li, Qizhen; Wang, Dou; Liu, Liping; Tang, Ben Zhong; Jiang, Xingyu · Sci Adv · 2022

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Point-of-care (POC) biochemical sensors have found broad applications in areas ranging from clinical diagnosis to environmental monitoring. However, POC sensors often suffer from poor sensitivity. Here, we synthesized a metal-organic framework, where the ligand is the aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen), which we call metal-AIEgen frameworks (MAFs), for use in the ultrasensitive POC biochemical sensors. MAFs process a unique luminescent mechanism of structural rigidity-enhanced emission to achieve a high quantum yield (~99.9%). We optimized the MAFs to show 10<sup>2</sup>- to 10<sup>3</sup>-fold enhanced sensitivity for a hydrogel-based POC digital sensor and lateral flow immunoassays (LFIA). MAFs have a high affinity to directly absorb proteins, which can label antibodies for immunoassays. MAFs-based LFIA with enhanced sensitivity shows robust serum detection for POC clinical diagnosis.