Electrochemical detection of human ferritin based on gold nanorod reporter probe and cotton thread immunoassay device

In this study, a natural cotton thread immunoassay device combined with gold nanorod (GNR) reporter probe is developed for the rapid, sensitive and quantitative electrochemical determination of human ferritin, a lung cancer related biomarker. Human ferritin as an analyte and a pair of monoclonal antibodies are used to demonstrate the proof-of-concept on the cotton thread immunoassay device. An enhancement of the sensitivity is achieved by using gold nanorod as an electroactive report probe compared with a traditional gold nanoparticle (GNP) report probe. The device was capable of measuring 1.58   ng/mL ferritin in 30   min by anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) testing, which meet the requirement for clinical diagnosis.