Realization of more precise multiplex detection on magnetic/fluorescent barcodes platform via enjoying AIEgens’ large stokes shift characteristic

Magnetic/fluorescent barcodes combine fluorescent dyes and magnetic materials in micrometer-sized host microspheres, offering high potential for high-throughput multiplexed biodetection automatically. However, the significant fluorescence quenching effect of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) towards organic luminogens limits the coding capacity in practical applications. In addition, aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) and photon reabsorption effects of organic luminogens result in unpredictable fluorescence encoding numbers, and several experimental iterations are required. Herein, a reliable and simple strategy based on large stokes shift aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens/magnetic barcodes is established for multiplex detection by eliminating the negative effects aboved of multicolor organic dyes. The in-situ generation and layer-by-layer modification strategies are utilized to prepare the related microspheres, which showed lower magnetic quenching effect and energy transfer process as expected. Thus, 36 encoded peaks are feasible based on the theoretical 6 × 6 barcode matrix with two colors and six intensity levels, providing great potential for large-scale multiplex detection. Based on the developed magnetic/fluorescent barcodes the excellent detection performance (detection limits: 5.5–20.6 pg·mL −1 ) are achieved for the detection of seven common cytokines from patient serum samples. These results indicate that the characteristic of AIEgens enjoying large stokes shift could give a barcode platform greater potential in the field of precision multiplex detection in clinic.