One-step polymerized lanthanide-based polystyrene microsphere for sensitive lateral flow immunoassay

Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) provide a powerful tool for rapid real-time assay of cancer biomarkers, which is vital for cancer detection and treatment follow-up. Lanthanide-based LFIAs is one of the most widely used methods, especially Eu (III) chelates, which possess distinctive and attractive characteristics, such as time-resolved fluorescence and large Stokes shift. Herein, we adopted a new onestep mini-emulsion polymerization method to synthesize carboxyl-modified fluorescent microsphere (OS-EuCM), which shows good stability, resistance to non-specific adhesion and uniform particle size distribution compared with traditional microspheres synthesized through the swelling method. Benefiting from the above advantages, OS-EuCM was successfully used in LFIAs to detect tumor marker Alpha-fetoprotein with high sensitivity and selectivity in concentration as high as 320 ng/mL, as well as a detection limit of 0.683 ng/mL. This lanthanide-based microsphere holds great potential for rapid point of-care screening and clinical application. (c) 2021 Chinese Society of Rare Earths. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are powerful tools for rapid real-time assay of cancer biomarkers. Lanthanide-based microspheres show great potential for high sensitivity and stability in detecting tumor markers.