Sensitive detection of a tumor marker, α-fetoprotein, with a sandwich assay on a plasmonic chip.

Two types of plasmonic silver- and gold-coated grating biosensor chips (plasmonic chip) were applied in the detection of α-fetoprotein (AFP) with a sandwich imunoassay and surface plasmon field-enhanced fluorescence. On the plasmonic chip, unlabeled marker in the sandwich immunoassay was first quantitatively detected over a wide range between 10(-12) and 10(-8) g/mL. The affinity constants between AFP and anti-AFP antibody, which were obtained by fitting the experimental data to the Langmuir isotherm adsorption curve, were 1 × 10(8) g(-1) mL regardless of the kind of metal in the plasmonic chips. Although the fluorescence intensity on the silver plasmonic chip was 5 times larger than that on the gold plasmonic chip, the limit of detection (LOD) was on the order of 10(-11) g/mL and not improved with a silver plasmonic chip. Herein, we used a new setup that generated less dispersions of both the fluorescence intensity for nonspecific adsorption and the background (optical blank) signal and improved the LOD of AFP to 4 pg/mL (55 fM) with the silver plasmonic chip. With the highly sensitive detection in the sandwich immunoassay, the development of a plasmonic chip for clinical diagnosis by a blood test is promising.