Existing affinity-based fluorescence biosensing systems
for monitoring
of biomarkers often utilize a fixed solid substrate immobilized with
capture probes limiting their use in continuous or intermittent biomarker
detection. Furthermore, there have been challenges of integrating
fluorescence biosensors with a microfluidic chip and low-cost fluorescence
detector. Herein, we demonstrated a highly efficient and movable fluorescence-enhanced
affinity-based fluorescence biosensing platform that can overcome
the current limitations by combining fluorescence enhancement and
digital imaging. Fluorescence-enhanced movable magnetic beads (MBs)
decorated with zinc oxide nanorods (MB-ZnO NRs) were used for digital
fluorescence-imaging-based aptasensing of biomolecules with improved
signal-to-noise ratio. High stability and homogeneous dispersion of
photostable MB-ZnO NRs were obtained by grafting bilayered silanes
onto the ZnO NRs. The ZnO NRs formed on MB significantly improved
the fluorescence signal up to 2.35 times compared to the MB without
ZnO NRs. Moreover, the integration of a microfluidic device for flow-based
biosensing enabled continuous measurements of biomarkers in an electrolytic
environment. The results showed that highly stable fluorescence-enhanced
MB-ZnO NRs integrated with a microfluidic platform have significant
potential for diagnostics, biological assays, and continuous or intermittent
biomonitoring.