Coreactant-free electrochemiluminescence of polyfluorene nanoparticle coupling double quencher for β-amyloid1-42 detection

β-amyloid1-42 (Aβ1-42) is a humoral biomarker for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and exists at a low level in human body. Its sensitive detection is very valuable. The electrochemiluminescence (ECL) assay of Aβ1-42 has attracted special attention owing to high sensitivity and simple operation. However, currently reported ECL assays for Aβ1-42 usually required the introduction of exogenous coreactants to improve the detection sensitivity. Introducing exogenous coreactants will lead to non-negligible repeatability and stability problems. This work exploited poly [(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(1,4-benzo-{2,1′,3}-thiadazole)] nanoparticles (PFBT NPs) as coreactant-free ECL emitters for detecting Aβ1-42. The PFBT NPs, first antibody (Ab1) and antigen Aβ1-42 were successively assembled on glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Silica nanoparticles served as a carrier to grow polydopamine (PDA) in situ, and further assembled Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) and second antibody (Ab2), producing the secondary antibody complex (SiO2@PDA-Au NPs-Ab2). With its assembly on the biosensor, the ECL signal decreased since both PDA and Au NPs could quench ECL emission from PFBT NPs. The limit of detection (LOD) of 0.55 fg/mL and limit of quantification (LOQ) of 37.45 fg/mL for Aβ1-42 were obtained. PFBT NPs coupling dual-quencher PDA-Au NPs created an excellent ECL system for bioassays, and constructed a sensitive analytical method for Aβ1-42.