Development of a SERS aptasensor for the determination of L-theanine using a noble metal nanoparticle-magnetic nanospheres composite

An ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) aptamer sensor (aptasensor) using a noble metal nanoparticle-magnetic nanospheres composite was developed for L-theanine detection. It makes use of Fe 3 O 4 @Au MNPs and Au@Ag NPs embedded with the Raman reporter 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4MBA). Au@4MBA@Ag NPs modified by aptamer and Fe 3 O 4 @Au MNPs modified by cDNA created the aptasensor with the strongest Raman signal of 4MBA through the specific binding of the aptamer. With the preferred binding of L-theanine aptamer to L-theanine, Au@4MBA@Ag NPs were released from Fe 3 O 4 @Au MNPs, causing a linear decrease in SERS intensity to achieve the SERS detection of the L-theanine. The SERS peak of 4MBA at 1078 cm −1 was used for quantitative determination. SERS intensity showed a good log-linear relationship within the range 10 −10 to 10 −6  M of L-theanine. The aptasensor has a high selectivity for L-theanine compared with other twelve tested analytes. Hence, this aptasensor is a promising analytical tool for L-theanine detection. The developed method was applied to the analysis of real samples, demonstrating excellent performance. The comparison with the standard liquid chromatography mass spectrometry method showed an error within 20%. Graphical abstract