A simple AuNPs-based colorimetric aptasensor for chlorpyrifos detection

Abstract

Background Chlorpyrifos (Chl) is an organophosphorus pesticide, which has toxicity to environment, animals and human beings. To overcome the shortages of traditional detection methods of small molecular, this study aimed to develop a sensitive, simple, low cost and on-site rapid method for Chl analysis and detection. Thus, we developed a simple label-free gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) based colorimetric biosensor aptasensor for Chl detection using an aptamer as the caputure probe. Results The Chl-aptamer with low dissociation constant (Kd) of 58.59 ± 6.08 (nM) was selected by ssDNA library immobilized systematic evolution of ligands by enrichment (SELEX). In the absence of Chl, the Chl-aptamer acted as the stabilizer for AuNPs in salt solution. In the presence of Chl, the highly specific Chl-aptamer bound with Chl targets immediately thus a self-aggregation of AuNPs induced by salt was displayed. The fabricated colorimetric aptasensor exhibited an excellent sensitivity for Chl detection with the limit of detection as low as 14.46 nM. In addition, the aptasensor was applied to test Chl in tap water, cucumber and cabbage samples, which showed satisfying results with excellent recovery values between 96.2% and 105.6% and acceptable RSD values below 5%. Conclusions The developed colorimetric aptasensor can serve as a promising candidate for Chl detection in the area of biosensors, which also showed a great potential in simple, cheap and rapid detection of Chl.