Hybridization induced fluorescence enhanced DNA-Ag nanocluster/aptamer probe for detection of prostate-specific antigen

In this work, a label-free Ag nanocluster (AgNC)-based fluorescent probe is proposed to detect tumor marker, prostate-specific antigen (PSA). In the experiments, DNA sequences containing segments complemented to different parts of PSA aptamer were used to synthesize DNA-Ag nanoclusters (DNA-AgNC). Some of the obtained specific DNA-AgNC exhibited significant fluorescence increase after hybridization with PSA aptamer. Based on this, a simple DNA-AgNC/aptamer hybridization probe was fabricated for PSA detection using fluorescence quenching, because competitively specific binding between PSA and its aptamer inhibited the fluorescence enhancement effect of PSA aptamer on DNA-AgNC. The sequence of template DNA, pH and salt concentration of binding buffer, and the concentration of aptamer were optimized. Under optimum conditions, the concentration of PSA within the range of 2–150 ng mL −1 with the detection limit of 1.14 ng mL −1 was detected (3σ; n = 7). This approach was also successfully applied to determine PSA in spiked serum samples. As is well known, this was the first report to realize PSA detection using fluorescent AgNC-based probe. This work would provide reference for construction of AgNC-based probes for detecting other proteins.