Sensitive detection
of human immunodeficiency virus DNA (HIV-DNA)
is essential for timely diagnosis and cure of the illness. Herein,
a novel “enrichment–stowage–cycle” strategy
was proposed to fabricate a multiple amplified electrochemiluminecence
(ECL) biosensor for HIV-DNA detection. On the basis of the enrichment
role of magnetic nanobeads, assembly role of copolymer nanospheres
and strand displacement amplification (SDA), the processes were named
as “enrichment”, “stowage”, and “cycle”,
respectively. The method employed electrochemiluminescent nanospheres
(ENs) as signal labels by assembling three layers of CdSe/ZnS quantum
dots (QDs) onto the surface of copolymer nanospheres. Compared to
QDs, the same concentration of ENs can the enhance the ECL intensity
by about 11.3-fold. SDA could further amplify the signals by about
3.77-fold, possessing high sensitivity for low-abundant biomarkers
detection. The integration of magnetic separation improved detection
specificity and stability, making the method possible for practical
application. On the basis of magnetic separation, ENs and SDA, the
ECL biosensor realized ultrasensitive detection of 39.81 fM HIV-DNA,
which was more sensitive than other HIV-DNA analytical methods, with
a wide dynamic range of 0.05 pM to 50 nM. The successful detection
of HIV-DNA in complex samples with good sensitivity and accuracy indicated
its potential utilization in early judgment of diseases and fabrication
of signal amplification platforms.