One-Step Quantitative Detection of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin by Integrating Immunochromatography Test Strip with Fluorescence Detection of Quantum Qots

Abstract

The Immunochromatography test strip (ICTS) is a one step and the commonest commercial point-of-care diagnostic format. Their advantages of convenient and fast testing enable the rapid decisions on diseases. However, the fundamental limitation of quantitative and sensitive analysis severely hampers their application in the field of early detection. Herein, we overcame these limitations by integrating of quantum dots with distinct optical and electronic properties, which were served as the signal reporters for ICTS. Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), which has been recognized as a clinic marker of pregnancy, was used as a model analyte to demonstrate the performance of the QDs-based ICTS platform. Under optimized conditions, the detection limit was about 0.24 IU/L. Meanwhile, the concentrations of HCG could be determined within 20 min with high specificity, using only 40 μL of sample. Our data suggests that the QDs-based ICTS platform is a rapid, low-cost, highly sensitive and specific test platform for quantitative point-of-care diagnostics, which holds promise to become part of routine medical testing for other protein markers detections.