Quantitative evaluation of human carboxylesterase 1 by SERS-ELISA using a synergistic enhancement strategy based on gold nanoparticles and metal–organic framework

A Review on the Recent Progress of Metal-Organic Frameworks Based Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering Sensors

Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has evolved into a significant fingerprint spectroscopic technique for rapidly and nonintrusively tracing target analytes through effective SERS substrates. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as a boom crystalline porous material, serve as promising SERS substrates by accommodating noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) to produce MOFs-based SERS-active materials. Recently, MOFs-based SERS materials (MNPs/MOFs) have gained significant attention due to their enhanced sensing performance. The unique porous nature of MOFs provides an efficient capture capability for analytes, while their shells prevent NPs from oxidization and corrosion, thereby enhancing the consistency of SERS substrates. So far, numerous MNPs/MOFs sensors have been documented. This review outlines the research progress of MNPs/MOFs composites, focusing on the classification, synthesis strategies, and applications in environment analysis, real-time monitoring, food safety, etc.

Facile synthesis of novel Ni-BDC-NH2/Au NPs SERS substrates with synergistic enhancement effects for high-performance detection

Substrate materials with high sensitivity and good reproducibility are highly desirable for the practical applications of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) techniques. In this study, a novel gold nanoparticle-loaded Ni-based metal-organic framework (Ni-BDC-NH2/Au NPs) SERS substrate was successfully synthesized via an electrostatic self-assembly method. The enhancement of the SERS signal is achieved owing to the synergy between the chemical enhancement (CM) effect of Ni-BDC-NH2 and the electromagnetic enhancement (EM) of Au NPs, and the enriching of the analyte near the SERS "hot spots" through the strong adsorption capacity of Ni-BDC-NH2. The Ni-BDC-NH2/Au NPs exhibited a high enhancement factor (EF) of 1.10 × 107 and a low detection limit of 5 × 10-9 mol L-1. Besides, the substrate material showed exceptional stability for up to 45 days at room temperature. The Ni-BDC-NH2/Au NPs was used to detect methylene blue (MB), displaying a wide linear range (5 × 10-7 to 5 × 10-5 mol L-1) and high recoveries (86.82-104.46%). These results indicate that the Ni-BDC-NH2/Au NPs hybrid substrate has great potential for the detection of environmental pollution in practical applications.

Gold nanoparticles decorated crystalline carbon nitride nano-walls as a SERS chip for rapid and sensitive detection of benzidine

Risk level of benzidine residue to the environment and food safety urges surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates to develop with high sensitivity and rapid enrichment. Herein, a hybrid of Au NPs decorated crystalline carbon nitride nano-walls (Au/CCN NWs) is fabricated on Al sheet and employed as a SERS substrate for the first time. An electro-enhanced adsorption strategy is employed to endow as-prepared Au/CCN NWs/Al chip with rapid assay capability. Crystalline phase transition and nano-wall morphology respectively bestows high charge transfer efficiency and favorable enrichment activity upon Au/CCN NWs/Al chip, and the hybrid substrate owns a considerable enhancement factor of 1.76 × 106 under static adsorption mode. Moreover, Au/CCN NWs/Al substrate can achieve the saturation enrichment of benzidine in 120 s with the help of electro-enhanced adsorption, and gains a significantly enhanced signal response compared to static adsorption. Likewise, the highly sensitive response (1 μg L-1), superior reproducibility (RSD = 9.11 %, n = 100) and reliable accuracy (recovery rate of 95.55 %-109.46 %) jointly demonstrate that Au/CCN NWs/Al substrate may be applicable for detecting benzidine residue in actual application. This work offers an integrated solution to both enhance charge transfer efficiency and enrichment activity based on collaborative crystalline phase transition and electro-enhanced adsorption, and may inspire the design of novel noble metal/semiconductor hybrid SERS substrates.

Novel Ratiometric Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Biosensor for Ultrasensitive Quantitative Monitoring of Human Carboxylesterase-1 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells Using Ag-Au Nanoflowers as SERS Substrate

In this study, we developed ratiometric surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) biosensors using Ag-Au alloy nanoflowers as SERS substrates, molecules having amide bonds and alkyne groups (Tag A) as Raman reporters, and sodium thiocyanate as an internal standard molecule (Tag B) for the sensitive detection of human carboxylesterase-1 (hCE1) in HepG-2 cells. The correlation between HepG-2 cell damage and hCE1 activity levels was investigated. Both Tag A's alkyne group and Tag B's cyanide group produced characteristic SERS signals in the Raman-silent region (I2000 cm-1 and I2115 cm-1, respectively). The hydrolysis of the amide bond in Tag A via hCE1 and the shedding of the alkyne group led to a reduction in the SERS signal intensity observed at I2000 cm-1. Conversely, the SERS signal intensity of Tag B at I2115 cm-1 exhibited a consistent pattern. As the activity level of hCE1 and the ratiometric peak intensity (I2000 cm-1/I2115 cm-1) correlated negatively, hCE1 could be quantitatively detected within the range of 10-2 to 2 × 102 ng·mL-1, with a detection limit of 7.3 pg·mL-1. The ratiometric SERS probe strategy, in which a ratio response is employed, permits sensitive and reproducible SERS detection by facilitating intrinsic calibration to rectify signal fluctuations resulting from temporal and spatial variations in the detection conditions. Concurrently, the implementation of Raman-silent region reporter molecules mitigates the interference from endogenous biomolecules in SERS measurements and offers a novel approach for achieving highly sensitive and interference-free detection of intracellular hCE1.

Metalation of metal-organic frameworks: fundamentals and applications

Metalation of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has been developed as a prominent strategy for materials functionalization for pore chemistry modulation and property optimization. By introducing exotic metal ions/complexes/nanoparticles onto/into the parent framework, many metallized MOFs have exhibited significantly improved performance in a wide range of applications. In this review, we focus on the research progress in the metalation of metal-organic frameworks during the last five years, spanning the design principles, synthetic strategies, and potential applications. Based on the crystal engineering principles, a minor change in the MOF composition through metalation would lead to leveraged variation of properties. This review starts from the general strategies established for the incorporation of metal species within MOFs, followed by the design principles to graft the desired functionality while maintaining the porosity of frameworks. Facile metalation has contributed a great number of bespoke materials with excellent performance, and we summarize their applications in gas adsorption and separation, heterogeneous catalysis, detection and sensing, and energy storage and conversion. The underlying mechanisms are also investigated by state-of-the-art techniques and analyzed for gaining insight into the structure-property relationships, which would in turn facilitate the further development of design principles. Finally, the current challenges and opportunities in MOF metalation have been discussed, and the promising future directions for customizing the next-generation advanced materials have been outlined as well.

Highly Sensitive Measurement of Horseradish Peroxidase Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering of 2,3-Diaminophenazine

The development of various enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) coupled with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection is a growing area in analytical chemistry due to their potentially high sensitivity. A SERS-based ELISA with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as an enzymatic label, an o-phenylenediamine (oPD) substrate, and a 2,3-diaminophenazine (DAP) enzymatic product was one of the first examples of such a system. However, the full capabilities of this long-known approach have yet to be revealed. The current study addresses a previously unrecognized problem of SERS detection stage performance. Using silver nanoparticles and model mixtures of oPD and DAP, the effects of the pH, the concentration of the aggregating agent, and the particle surface chloride stabilizer were extensively evaluated. At the optimal mildly acidic pH of 3, a 0.93 to 1 M citrate buffer, and AgNPs stabilized with 20 mM chloride, a two orders of magnitude advantage in the limits of detection (LODs) for SERS compared to colorimetry was demonstrated for both DAP and HRP. The resulting LOD for HRP of 0.067 pmol/L (1.3 amol per assay) underscores that the developed approach is a highly sensitive technique. We suppose that this improved detection system could become a useful tool for the development of SERS-based ELISA protocols.