Development of electrochemical based sandwich enzyme linked immunosensor for Cryptosporidium parvum detection in drinking water

Cryptosporidium parvum is one of the most important biological contaminants in drinking water and generates significant risks to public health. Due to low infectious dose of C. parvum, remarkably sensitive detection methods are required for water and food industry analysis. This present study describes a simple, sensitive, enzyme amplified sandwich form of an electrochemical immunosensor using dual labeled gold nanoparticles (alkaline phosphatase and anti-oocysts monoclonal antibody) in indium tin oxide (ITO) as an electrode to detect C. parvum. The biosensor was fabricated by immobilizing the anti-oocysts McAb on a gold nanoparticle functionalized ITO electrode, followed by the corresponding capture of analytes and dual labeled gold nanoparticle probe to detect the C. parvum target. The outcome shows the sensitivity of electrochemical immune sensor enhanced by gold nanoparticles with a limit of detection of 3 oocysts/mL in a minimal processing period. Our results demonstrated the sensitivity of the new approach compared to the customary method and the immunosensors showed acceptable precision, reproducibility, stability, and could be readily applied to multi analyte determination for environmental monitoring.