Building a Fluorescent Aptasensor Based on Exonuclease-Assisted Target Recycling Strategy for One-Step Detection of T-2 Toxin

In this work, a rapid and accurate assay was successfully developed for T-2 toxin detection based on exonuclease-catalyzed target recycling strategy. Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) were conjugated with T-2 aptamer and used as signal probes, while magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were conjugated with the complementary DNA of T-2 aptamer (cDNA) and used as capture probes. The results reveled that good linear correlation ( R 2  = 0.9988) was achieved for T-2 toxin detection over the concentration range of 0.1–100 ng/mL with a detection limit as low as 0.035 ng/mL (S/ N  = 3). In addition, the reliability of the proposed method was also applied to the determination of T-2 toxin contents in real food samples and the average recoveries ranged from 95.97 to 104.00%. The sensing platform developed in our study demonstrated great potential for simple and sensitive detection of T-2 toxin contents in food samples.